By Magazine
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.
Dr. Seuss
By B.P. Wadia
[From LIVING THE LIFE, pages 93-98.]
Those enjoyments that arise through the contact of the senses with external objects are wombs of pain, since they have a beginning and an end; O son of Kunti, the wise man delighteth not in these
-- Bhagavad-Gita, V. 22
Said the Lama to Kim, "When I was a young man, a very long time ago, I was plagued with these vapors, and some others, and I went to an abbot -- a very holy man and a seeker after truth, though then I knew it not. Sit up and listen, child of my soul! My tale was told. Said he to me, "Chela, know this. There are many lies in the world, and not a few liars, but there are no liars like our bodies, except it be the sensations of our bodies." Considering this, I was comforted.
-- Rudyard Kipling
It was once said by a teacher to a pupil, "Extinguish the bonfire in your brain or you will develop into a human fire-blight." Wise words these. What is a bonfire and what is a fire blight?
A bonfire ordinarily is a large fire in the open air lighted at festivities; time was when it was lighted for the burning of bones. So the teacher must have meant the extinguishment of the fire of sense-pleasures and of the dead bones of old and crumbling thoughts and feelings. And if this is not done one acts as a fire blight, a bacillus destroying twigs and leaves, blossoms and fruits -- embodiments of beauty and of nourishment.
Sensations light bonfires in the brain now and again; sensations form the second group of the five skandhas (vedana) that constitute the lower man, but that affect the higher man or the Soul. Sensations are very closely related to the senses and the organs. HPB says that the senses are "the ten organs of man" and that "in Occultism they are closely allied with various forces of nature, and with our INNER organisms called cells in physiology." (The Theosophical Glossary)
Sensations are agreeable or disagreable, pleasurable or painful. They are caused by the contact of the senses with outer objects; these stir the senses and affect the personal consciousness. They are also caused by the desire-mind (kama-manas) -- the emotional urges that stir the senses. Sometimes we have no sensation; we are indifferent, and indifference is reckoned as the fifth class of sensations.
Now, in living their lives, ordinary men and women are affected by the numerous pairs of opposites rooted in impressions, sensations, and emotions. As the senses and organs are living, they have a life of their own. This life engrosses ordinary men and women ignorant of the truths about the Soul or of the very existence of the Soul. They identify themselves with the life of the senses and strengthen the false "I" that comes into being in the antenatal life and that continues to grow after the birth of the body.
The inner life is of the Soul; the outer life is of the senses. The former is the real man -- the individual; the latter is the mask of the former -- the personality. The Inner Ego is the Immortal Thinker, one with the Supreme Spirit -- he calls himself "I am I." The outer man is mortal, identifies himself with the bodily self, and says, "I am Mr. So-and-So" or "I am Mrs. So-and-So." The beginning, the middle, and the end of the Higher Life consists, first in overcoming the notion of "I am So-and-So," secondly in the recognition of and identification with the real "I," the Thinker, who controls sense-life, and thirdly in reflecting upon the profound nature and powers of that Thinker and Soul. "Knowest thou of Self the powers, O thou perceiver of external shadows?"
We chase the external shadows of wealth and fame, of power over others, demanding love from others; the shadows of ambition, of comfort for the body, and of home-life; we eagerly and zestfully pursue the desire for sensation; we endeavor to fulfill emotional urges; we long for praise from others. All such involvement in worldly tendencies wins for us the title "perceiver of external shadows." It keeps us oblivious of the very existence of the Soul; and perchance if under good Karma a man or a woman hears about the Great Self and the Grand Hereafter, he does not cleave to the Self or reflect upon the Hereafter.
Let us quote the whole passage from THE VOICE OF THE SILENCE that advises the student-aspirant to master the mental changes in his Self and
[Slay] the army of the thought sensations that, subtle and insidious, creep unasked within the Soul's bright shrine.
If thou would'st not be slain by them, then must thou harmless make thy own creations, the children of thy thoughts, unseen, impalpable, that swarm round humankind, the progeny and heirs to man and his terrestrial spoils. Thou hast to study the voidness of the seeming full, the fullness of the seeming void. O fearless Aspirant, look deep within the well of thine own heart, and answer. Knowest thou of Self the powers, O thou perceiver of external shadows?
If thou dost not -- then art thou lost.
Originating from the ocean of Jiva, Living Wisdom, these precepts vitalize, like Prana, those "Few" to whom THE BOOK OF THE GOLDEN PRECEPTS is dedicated. They possess the durability, constancy, utility, and shining power of the royal metal -- gold. They form most suitable frames for the priceless wisdom, the diamonds of truth, the rubies of love, and the sapphires of beauty -- the jewels for the Higher Life.
Let us study the precepts enshrined in the passage quoted above.
We have a shrine in the Astral Body, the shrine of our sensations, built on the pattern of the Akashic Temple of the Inner King, the Lord and Master, whose ambassador we are. Instead of taking our residence in the embassy provided by our royal master, we forget "the kindred points of Heaven and Home" and hire a house where the sensations of pleasure and the dead and dying skeletons of old beliefs and customs tempt us, and we fall prey to them. Thus, thoughts alien to the Soul creep in insidiously, and a whole army of lower sensations is created.
The great Shankara has taught:
Things of sense are more penetrating in the hurt they cause than the venom of the black serpent. The poison slays only him into whom it enters, but things of sense destroy through mere beholding.
Our thoughts are often cruel and hateful, retaliatory and violent, and though invisible to the naked eyes, they swarm round our fellow men, including those we love and respect. When we are cruel to someone we dislike, not only is he affected by our wrong emotion, but also all who come within the sphere of our influence, and among them are our friends and kin and innocent children, our own and our neighbors'. Our hate poisons us primarily and not only those we dislike, and more -- vitiates the very air we and they inhale. Retaliation and vengeance, like a boomerang, return to their originator. Violence may strike fear in another who is weak or ignorant and even innocent, but that vice causes psychic apoplexy in him who resorts to violence.
What is the remedy? Says, once again, the great Shankara:
When the sick man rightly uses medicine, he is restored to health, but not through the right actions of another.
What medicine shall we use? Our golden precept says to learn what is implicit in a profound metaphysical truth -- the interrelation between the vacuum and the plenum. What seems empty is full: standing on firm earth and gazing heavenwards at the sidereal orbs, man fancies that he is able to see the shining bodies because there is no obstruction between earth and heaven; he overlooks the fact that the ocean of air is there and rays of light are there; that the seeming void is full. On the other hand, a solid rock has nothing about it to suggest voidness. Even so, the rock as a solid body is Maya, says the ancient Sage, and the modern physicist recognizes that illusionary character of the rock in his own way: the rock is composed of atoms, electrons, protons, etc.; that rock is a seething body of motions, and the rock insofar as rock has a vacuous aspect.
The MAJJHIMA NIKAYA has this to say on the subject of the plenum and the vacuum:
"By abiding in what (concept) are you now abiding in its fullness, Sariputta?"
"By abiding in (the concept of) emptiness am I now abiding in its fullness, Lord."
"This is the abiding of 'great men,' Sariputta, that is to say (the concept of) emptiness."
In one way or another, by continuous study and meditation, the student-aspirant should acquire that habit of mind that discerns "the voidness of the seeming full, the fullness of the seeming void." But neither study nor meditation will suffice. It is application leading to experience and realization that must be valued and used. Therefore, we have to "look deep within the well of [our] own heart," and by self-examination, through purity and the exercise of virtue, we come to examine the Self, Its powers, Its character, and Its nature. If it is true that we proceed from the Teachings to the Teachers, it is equally true that in abandoning as worthless the "external shadows" we come to know "of Self the powers."
The Self IS; it cannot be said of It that It was, is, or will be. All else come into existence, live, and die to become different.
It is in the Well of the Heart that the Waters of Wisdom are to be found; drinking them, we become wise.
It is in the Well of the Heart that the Waters of Immortality are to be found; drinking them, we become immortal.
It is in the Well of the Heart that the Waters of Unity are to be found; drinking them, we shall become brothers to all men, brothers to all women, brothers to all children.
[From "Teachings of the Spring Equinox," IN THE TEMPLE, pages 53-62.]
Let us now turn to the matter of the Spring Equinoctial Initiatory Cycle. Concerning this, there is a doctrine that is both wonderful and strange, and like all the other teaching in our Holy Order, it is based on the operations of Mother Nature herself. It should be remembered that this phrase "Mother Nature," when used with its esoteric significance, includes not only the physical shell of the universe surrounding us, of which we know the existence through our imperfect senses of report, but also more particularly includes the vast and indeed frontierless realms of the spaces of Space.
This strange and wonderful doctrine sets forth that the great Initiatory Adventure upon which the lofty Initiant enters at the time of the Spring Equinox, is a copy, a duplication, a repetitive event, in our own small human sphere, of what actually occurs at cosmic time-intervals among the gods. The initiations that take place even today with more or less uninterrupted regularity at the time of the Spring Equinox include not only the passing through trials and an ultimate resurrection from the personal man of the god within, and an ascension into the spiritual realms, at least for a time, of the Initiant's percipient consciousness, but also includes also what it has been customary to call in the Occidental literature dealing with this theme the descent of the neophyte-Initiant, however grand his spiritual stature may be, into the Underworld, into those very real but to us utterly invisible realms of space that have their being in cosmic reaches still more material than our gross sphere of physical mayavic-substance.
It would be wrong to consider this Underworld as belonging exclusively to what has been called in Theosophical literature the Eighth Sphere, otherwise the planet of Death, although indeed the Eighth Sphere must be visited by the percipient consciousness peregrinating at the time.
We have thus, then, a picture of the Initiation of the Spring Equinox as a phase of the general Initiatory Cycle, this phase consisting of severe and searching trials of spiritual and intellectual and psychical as well as astral tests on the one hand, and on the other hand as likewise comprising a descent into spheres never traversed in the ordinary course of their development by the peregrinating Monads of average human beings, once that these Monads have begun to manifest in the human stage.
This strange and mysterious doctrine as thus briefly outlined, sets forth that on this our earth, on this holy and solemn occasion, there occurs a repetition or a duplication of what at certain intervals takes place among the divinities. Just as at certain times in the progress of cosmic destiny a certain divinity leaves it own luminous realms in order to "descend," or more accurately to transfer a portion of its own divine essence, into the world of men for the purpose of aiding and helping erring mankind, so exactly does the neophyte-Initiant descend or transfer his percipient consciousness into the Underworld in order to learn and also to help the denizens of those gloomy spheres. What the gods from their lofty heights do in this connection to help us these great men in spheres below our own do likewise.
One may well ask oneself, as one ponders deeply over this strange and profound teaching, and begins to sense its extraordinary and puzzling paradoxes, why it is that a divinity at any time should "descend," or project a portion of its essence, into our sphere, that it had long eons ago left behind in its evolutionary progress. The explanation lies in other teachings concerning the nature of our cosmic Solar System, as viewed from the spiritual standpoint. We learn that even the gods themselves are under the sway of almighty Destiny. Even they in their own lofty spheres, they make and unmake karma, and begin and end after bringing to their completion works of far-reaching influence on the cosmic Spaces. A certain portion of these divine activities must of necessity reach to and influence most deeply the spheres of men.
When the student of esotericism understands the profound philosophical import of the teaching concerning the real meaning of the triad of Hindu deities called Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, he will come to understand why these amazing events just spoken of, take place. As Brahma is the Evolver and the Producer, and as Vishnu is the Sustainer and Upholder, so is Shiva, who as you all know is the particular patron of esotericists, is the Regenerator because of being the Resolver.
To look upon this triad of divinities in the Solar System in the manner in which the Hindu exoteric literary works set them forth, is entirely to lose the real meaning and the reach of the esoteric teaching concerning them. The three are three individuals indeed, and yet they are one, very much as evolution and involution are twain, and yet are essentially one, because nothing can evolve what is within itself before that within has been involved into it. Thus, indeed, there can be no Brahma or Evolver or Producer unless the Regenerator or Resolver in a past cosmic period had already involved the seeds of the Universe later to be evolved or produced. Nor could there be any Manvantara or sustained course of cosmic life and evolution unless due to the incessant and continuous influence of the Sustainer, Upholder, and Preserver.
Now, then, pray listen carefully to the following. These three spiritual-divine energies in the Solar System, which are distinctly three and yet one in essence, verily are the higher triad of the Septenary belonging to the ten principles of our solar cosmos, and therefore exist and work in their sublimity in what is to us utter silence and darkness, because of being the higher three of the Solar System's septenary of worlds of life-energy-consciousness.
From time to time, governed strictly by the karma of the Solar System, there arises an impulse in the bosom of Maha-Vishnu to manifest a portion of itself, this portion being a divinity; and this impulse or super-spiritual urge cannot ever be denied or set aside. This impulse furthermore has a technical name in our esoteric teaching. It is called Bija, meaning "Seed," or, more accurately perhaps, "Avatara-Bija" -- the cosmic seed of the Avataras.
The Avataras appear on earth at intervals when the spiritual energies are running low amongst us, and the forces of matter are surging in turbulent waves ever higher. It is as if there were a spiritual psycho-magnetic strain in the structure of the Solar System, resulting in a spiritual-electric discharge of a spiritual energy, something like lightning on earth, this discharge being popularly called the "descent" of the Avatara, thus preserving the stability and the equilibrium of things. Just so, then, in our world, is it in the cases of these great men, these sublime neophyte-Initiants, who during the course of their Initiation "descend" into the Underworld for the sake of bringing a spiritual Light to the beings enchained in the darkness of those gloomy spheres -- spheres that to us seem realms of gloom only because we are higher than they.
So closely is all Nature knitted together, so intimately and intricately are the strands of the Web of Life woven, that all Nature must be considered as one vast organism. When there is a lack of some element-energy in any part of the cosmic body, there is an impulse or urge from other parts possessing this lacking element-energy in abundance, towards the place where such lack exists. There is a consequent passage, peregrination, or transference of the lacking element-energy to its destination in order that stability and equilibrium of the cosmic structure may be reestablished or maintained.
The initiation-periods, as you already know, Companions, do not take place by hap or by hazard, nor are they governed by the mere wish or will of human beings, however grand, however sublime, but take place strictly according to the working of the spiritual cosmic magnetisms of the Universe. In consequence, the grand neophyte-Initiants enter upon their trials and make their journeys into the Underworld because for the time being they are become utterly obedient Servants of the Law of the Universe, and therefore can hardly do otherwise.
From what has been said, therefore, it becomes immediately obvious how grandly does Nature's heart beat throughout with compassionate pulse, for what men in their feebleness of speech describe by such phrases as "the reestablishing of disturbed equilibrium," or "the maintenance of cosmic stability," is but a poor way of expressing the fact of the automatic operation of the Cosmic Life in restoring the cosmic harmonies, in the readjustment of the cosmic energies, all under the governance and control of the ineffably grand Heart of Life-Consciousness that beats unceasingly and without pause or surcease to the very end of the Solar Manvantara.
Hence, it is that the Spring Equinox in particular and the Avataras are associated in both human thought and in cosmic actuality. Bear in mind, Companions, that three are the general cases or general instances in which there occur descents or Avataric manifestations of spiritual energies into human existence as extraordinarily powerful motors. One is that of the Avataras produced by the influence of the Bija in Maha-Vishnu; the second is the case of the Buddhas; and the third is that occurring at rare intervals among human beings who are neither Avataras nor Buddhas. Mark well that the Avatara is the descent of the influence, or of a portion if the word be preferred, of a divinity through a loaned intermediate Bodhisattvic psychological apparatus in order to manifest in human life in a pure human body. The Buddhas incarnate their own spiritual-divine influences, in each case emanating from the Buddha's own inner god, and do this through the entire term of their work in the world of men; and they manifest these spiritual powers in purposes and works of indescribably lofty benevolence and far-reaching beneficence.
The cases of the rare humans who, being neither Avataras nor Buddhas, from time to time embody or become the dwelling-places of spiritual-divine rays, are those unusual men or women who, because of a line of karma that is singularly free from crippling and embarrassing shackles of personality, are able to transmit a ray from the higher triads of themselves. This ray penetrates into and sets on fire with its holy flame the brain-mind and emotional apparatus of such men and women. The cases of these unusual human beings can be demonstrated by men and women whose entire existence shows a spiritual and intellectual power far exceeding that of average men, and yet they are only human beings. They may, for instance, be great and noble-minded artists, great and noble-minded philosophers, or humanitarians or statesmen; but they are men and men only. They are neither Avataras on the one hand, nor Buddhas on the other hand, and their existence is so well known in the various world-religions, that in these religions they have been called by various names, such as "saints," as in the Christian religion, or "holy men," or by other similar titles.
Although these three classes, just described, manifesting spiritual-divine rays, so different as among themselves, are the three instances in which the divine-spiritual manifests in the human sphere, it must be particularly noticed that the originating impulse or urge in all these three classes takes its rise in the mysterious Bija existing and working from dawn to twilight of a cosmic Manvantara in the bosom of Maha-Vishnu.
As a last thought in this connection, mark well that there are Avataras also of Maha-Shiva, just as well as there are Avataras of Vishnu, the Sustainer of the solar Universe; and it is these Avataras of Maha-Shiva, the solar Regenerator, which produce perhaps the most widespread and world-shaking effects in the sphere of men.
The duty of some of the Avataras, their characteristic or swabhava, is to preserve and sustain all that is spiritual, noble, good, lofty, and holy; whereas the work of other Avataras is to regenerate, to make over anew, to bring forth from the womb of Destiny what is waiting to come to birth. Hence, it is that the work of Shiva-influence has often and always stupidly been called destruction. The profound philosophy of the process has not been grasped by either Occidental or Oriental scholars. It is obvious that there are times, brought about by the whirling Wheel of Life, when evil in the course of destiny must be overthrown, when structures and works that have outlasted their times must be destroyed from the foundations up in order that a newer building and a grander and loftier structure, both spiritually and materially speaking, shall be raised.
Difficult indeed is the theme of thought upon which I have embarked tonight, and I feel urged to utter a word of warning that the Companions here assembled shall not leap to points of conclusion on the supposition that they have grasped the full import of the meaning of the strange and wonderful doctrine that I have so briefly outlined. Remember that the entire solar Universe is one vast organism, quivering and palpitating with life throughout all its reaches, and that what men call spirit or what men call matter are but two phases or two aspects or two events of the onrushing or on-sweeping of the cosmic life-consciousness-substance working out its incomprehensibly sublime destiny.
Thus, it is that our entire Solar System can be viewed from two aspects. One is as a cosmic body of spheres built of the fabric of the cosmic consciousness. From the other aspect, it can be looked upon as an amazingly and most intricately intertwined web of spheres existing on many planes, but all under the dominance, and existing within the limits, of our cosmic Divinity. Hence, every atom quivers with life, and is an embodied consciousness-center that we call a Monad. The only difference between atom and god, between the hosts of darkness and the hosts of light, is one of evolutionary unfoldment.
Finally, let us try tonight to understand somewhat of the meaning of the experiences, so full of mystery and danger, that certain ones, more evolved than we are but yet belonging to our own Holy Order, are now undergoing.
[From THE ARYAN PATH, September 1949, pages 411-14.]
I write this, not because my personal belief or unbelief is in itself of any value, but because it may help to show others that some of us in the West are becoming increasingly conscious of the terrible wrongness of our way of life.
Only we who were born and live our lives here can fully realize the tragedy that faces the West today. It is not a question of war or peace, of life and death; the very existence of the soul is at stake. We have so long played the game of robbing Peter to pay Paul that our life has become one hideous lie. We distort Christ's teaching to suit our political and social habits -- there is no truth in us. We can neither openly deny Christ, nor admit the wrongness of our ways -- yet our way of life and that of Christ are completely incompatible. We refuse to acknowledge the value of the teachings of other great spiritual leaders -- we wallow, with incredible self-satisfaction, in the grime of our own darkness.
The following words were written hastily, without thought for composition or style, and I give them as they came. They are the musings of an inevitably confused, but groping mind, the mind of one born in darkness but beginning to see and believe.
I believe in neither God Almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth, nor in the "onlyness" of his son, Jesus Christ, as the creed of my Church would have me believe. Christ never taught me to say this, and I most certainly do not believe in the almighty Church that insists on my reciting these words every Sunday.
Religion, spiritual life, what you will, is virtually non-existent in the West today. It has been displaced by a morass of dogma pumped out by a dictatorial Church. Now it is the fashion for the State to control our every action. I cannot build a shelter for my chickens out of my own bricks, with my own hands, and on my own land, without applying to my own Government for a license. As the State controls my actions, so does the Church try to control my thoughts.
Some branches and sects of the Christian faith exercise more control than others do. I was brought up amongst people who considered themselves enlightened, broad-minded, fair, and just, yet from the earliest time that I can remember -- even as not much more than a babe in arms -- I have had this insidious propaganda of a dogmatic Church forcibly, yet cunningly, injected into my blood.
As soon as I could walk, I walked, or rather was walked to Church, every Sunday. I enjoyed the walk, but how I hated sitting on a hard bench listening to words I could not understand. But it came as a matter of course -- every Sunday I went to Church -- it was an accepted fact -- as much a part of my life as eating and drinking. That it meant nothing to me was of no importance.
By the time that I was old enough to understand things better, I was well drilled and disciplined, and I accepted what I heard in Church without query. I ate, I drank; breathed and slept; I went to Church -- and now I believed -- just like that. Why not? No arguments were put forward against what I heard -- none that came to my ears anyway. What the priest said was true -- I presumed that he had some form of communication with this God Almighty. Of the fact that there were other beliefs and theories -- even inside my own Church -- I was kept happily ignorant, so how should I believe otherwise than in the infallibility of this finely dressed priest, whose robes I had so long admired, and who forgave me my sins so royally?
As I said, during the early stages, my head was filled with meaningless mumbo-jumbo, but now that I was old enough to begin to think, I was taken aside regularly, and some form and shape was given to those meaningless words so firmly fixed in my mind. Then, with a number of other boys of the same age -- about thirteen or fourteen -- to Westminster Abbey, and there a benevolent old Bishop laid his hands on my head and told me that now I was a member of the holy Church, and could communicate with the Divine and be saved.
It was at about this time that I really began to think. "Except that thou ... (do this and do that), thou shalt be eternally damned." How could this be true? Hell would have to be many times larger than Heaven. Then there were the mission hymns that we sang on occasion, so that the "heathen lands afar" might see the light and be saved. Were all these non-Christian people to be damned too?
Such is our ignorance, even today, of other religions and beliefs that many churchgoers truly believe that there is no "salvation," no "way" whatsoever, except through the Christian Church. You just cannot be a good man or woman unless you are a Christian. Alas, we have neglected Christ and followed our finely dressed spiritual leaders. We have so long accepted their word as being God's word that we are now blind to the truth.
In refusing to say the creed of the Church, I apparently cease to be a Christian; in saying that Christ is no more divine (and no less) than other great spiritual leaders, I am proclaimed a heathen. It is an honor.
Freed from dogma, I can follow the truth and really believe. I believe in good wherever it is to be found, be it in the teachings of Christ, in the Gita, the Koran, or the Dhammapada. Fundamentally, I believe it to be the same truth that underlies all these.
The West is fettered by its beliefs, i.e., the teachings of Christ, which are incompatible with its politics, so it excuses them, and the Church aids and abets by presenting an interpretation of these beliefs that does not clash too violently with the particular political and social set-up in existence.
Thus, the Church condones and excuses mass murder, executions, State control, and a whole host of other unsavory aspects of our life that the State insists upon as necessary for the order of things, but which Christ condemned. Leo Tolstoy has ably pointed this out, and in India, that truly great soul, Gandhiji, did likewise by casting off dogma and convention, following the truth that was within him.
In the West, we are told that we are weak and sinful, that we need constant guidance from without; thus is cast around our necks the noose by which we are dragged through life -- the truth choked out of us. Why not consider the good and the strength in us? In even the weakest amongst us, there is goodness to be developed. True that many do need guidance, but guidance should take the form of pushing, not pulling; the ignorant should be pushed from behind so that they can see where they are going, they should be pushed until they discover the truth for themselves, instead of having a carefully arranged version of the truth forced down their throats. I have seen, in the wake of this last war, many apparently degraded and despicable half-human creatures who, given encouragement, have shown a finer spirit of truth and of love than many a dignified churchgoer. It bites right into the heart to see these miserable beings exhibit more love, compassion, and gentleness than of which the mass of prim and proper churchmen ever dream.
With the death of Gandhiji, many of us in the West were jolted to our senses. We suddenly realized that here was a person (and millions with him) who had refused to lie to himself any longer, but had followed instead the truth, without wavering. If more of us followed and obeyed our consciences rather than a set of complicated laws and regulations, there would be more peace and goodwill in the world. There is no need to be "antisocial" to do this. There is no need for anything but a belief in the inner goodness that underlies all humanity, and in the same inner voice that will guide us all alike, given the chance. Gandhiji and his followers gave the soul of mankind this chance, and clearly showed what great things can be achieved by constant adherence to the truth rather than to the law. If we all followed the Truth, the rift between our religion and our social system would disappear. If we all followed our conscience, there would be remarkable conformity of action, and a good deal less lawlessness than there is at present, because the law and the injunctions of our conscience would be the same thing.
No one is perfect, we all have our faults and should recognize them, but the sooner we stop telling ourselves what wretched, frail sinners we are, and trusting our physical and spiritual fate to the hands of dictators no less wretched and frail, the better. A country like India is lucky in having more enlightened leaders than we in the West have ever had. There is a greater harmony between the precepts of the conscience (national and individual) and those of the law; more importantly still, there is opportunity for reconciling once and for all that which is preached and that which is practiced. If India can do this, it will be the greatest gift a nation has ever given the world.
Those of us in the West -- and we are growing in number -- who believe that India can do this, are watching with a certain anxiety the pangs of a nation in the process of industrialization. The outcome in the West was the spiritual stagnation of the people. We allowed ourselves to become physically stereotyped, and finally surrendered our minds to the monster of mass production that we might conform, the one with the other and all with the State, both physically and mentally. Now we are utterly barren.
There is something dreadfully wrong with the Western way of life. It leads inevitably to the destruction of body and of mind. Instead of professing faith in a way leading to chaos, we should be able to act in accord with the light within. We should rather say, with due humility, "I believe in myself." When we see the truth in others, we should try to discover it for ourselves, instead of slavishly imitating it. Perhaps the spirit of India, ancient and modern, will show us how.
[From THE THEOSOPHICAL PATH, October 1915, pages 253-56.]
Speech is so natural to man that there is a certain difficulty in realizing the fact that it is a power acquired by virtue of self-mastery. It is a power that is capable of indefinite perfection and extension, one that is yet hardly more than foreshadowed in the evolution of the great mass of humanity, and one that marks the stage at which that evolution has arrived.
Speech is not merely the utterance of words, but rather the communication of thought, for a man whose language is only intelligible to him can hardly be said to have attained to speech. Yet how very limited is the range of such expression at the command of the average man. Even within the bounds of his own nation and in communication with others of his own class, the ordinary man has difficulty in making himself understood with any degree of certainty and precision.
Education and culture extend the range of this power, not only increasing the command of language by the enlargement of the vocabulary, but also developing skill and discretion in the adaptation of language to thought and to the intelligence of those addressed. The function of education is to aid man's evolution, and culture is but the perfection of his powers of expression.
It is often asserted that power entails responsibility, though perhaps more generally is it believed that power relieves the holder from all obligations that he may find it convenient to repudiate. But no sophistry can separate power from responsibility, for results follow causes as the furrow follows the plow.
The power of speech is obvious, and responsibility for its use or abuse cannot be avoided. There is a delusion of freedom from responsibility in the exercise of power. It is due to ignorance of the nature of man, of the continuity of life (by reincarnation), of the inevitable sequence of cause and effect (the law of Karma), and of the intimate relation of man to man and to the rest of creation, (due to the spiritual nature of the universe). Man is responsible for the way in which he uses the powers he inherits from his ancestors as well as for the way he employs such accomplishments as his own efforts may have added to his hereditary equipment, but to whom is he responsible? And who shall judge and ordain the penalties or rewards due?
To the last we answer, Nature is the judge and natural law the administrator of justice; but by Nature is meant the Spirit of the Universe, and by natural law the inherent nature of things animate and inanimate, human and divine: for we regard the essential Universe as divine and its nature as spiritual. Man, as part of this universe, is of its nature and bound by its laws, of which he is an expression. All men being thus of one origin are responsible to each other and to the universal Spirit, which is the Supreme Self: nor can a man separate himself from others, nor can he renounce his responsibility to them in any other way than as an act of self-deception.
The world we live in is but a small part of the universe we inhabit. Our present sphere of action is but one field of experience for our race, among many that will open to us as we pass around the great "wheel of life" through countless births and deaths, rising or falling in the passage of the ages, ever evolving higher powers and attaining to a clearer knowledge of our own divinity.
So to the first question we must answer man is responsible to the Self of all, for his own self is no way different from the universal, save in his ignorance of himself.
This ignorance is a mighty influence, the very atmosphere we breathe. It is the veil of Isis, a magic power of illusion making self-deception almost a destiny for earth life. It is not altogether a destiny, for the soul of man floats in the middle region between earthly life and spiritual reality, and so may act as guide and teacher to the brain and nerves of the man-animal we know as ordinary humanity. This is the guardian angel that inspires him in his noblest deeds and in his hours of aspiration, and this is the self he recognizes as his Master, whose decrees for him are of a higher and more austere authority than that of custom or of creed. The self-reliance taught by the great Masters of spiritual philosophy is the antithesis of the independence and self-worship of the mere materialist, who takes the Great Delusion for the Truth, and shuts the doorways of his mind against the entrance of the light his own soul seeks to shed upon his path.
The self-respect that makes the true Theosophist is based on his assurance that his inmost Self is no way separate from the source of Law that rules the universe. To him, the Law is but the revelation of his own unspoken Will, the spiritual energy of his Soul to which his mind and body give the best obedience that their state of evolution may make possible.
To the man who lives in the hypnotic state of ignorance that wraps humanity in a mist of dreams and fantasies, self-reverence means willing obedience to the delusion of the senses. To him, desire is the divine impulse, whatever is its character, whether for pleasure or power, for wealth, authority, or fame, or indeed for skill and mastery in science or in art. His self is personal, not universal; and so his interests are not identical with those of other men. He is at war even in peace, for such is the delusion of life at this stage of human evolution on this globe.
Yet though we know the power of this great deluder, we do not hesitate to repudiate its claim to our allegiance, because we know how gloriously powerful is the Soul of man when recognized as guide and teacher in the art of life.
Nor do we hesitate to say that man is responsible for the right use of all his powers, because we know that every man born into this world, though blind and ignorant, is yet in fact a soul incarnate. We know that truth has power to wake an echo in the hearts of men, whose minds may yet repudiate the doctrine of their own divinity. We know that men, who most strenuously deny the fact of brotherhood, will constantly by their acts give the lie straight to their own theories of the divine right of self-aggrandizement. And men, who use their power of speech without regard to what their words may bring about by influencing the thoughts and lives of other men, may yet be made to feel the deep significance of all the warnings voiced by philosophy as to the terrible power of speech and the responsibility of those who use it.
Much of the evil caused by careless speech is due to ignorance of the right use of words, as well as to indifference to the results of the misunderstanding natural to people variously educated or uneducated in the right use of language. For speech is an art, it is not natural in the popular sense. It must be acquired by constant study. The difficulty of communicating even a simple fact correctly in speech is startlingly revealed in every court of law, where honest witnesses will relate events in such a way as to convince an honest listener of the unfitness of such persons to testify by speech, owing to their ignorance of the art.
This art of speech goes so much further than the ordinary man imagines that it may seem far-fetched to him to hear it spoken of as a dangerous power, even when used with good intent. Yet such it is, for speech may stir the depths of human nature that lie below as well as above the range of reason. The soul of the beast that is in man may be stimulated and may be roused by song or speech inspired by passion. What follows may appear to have no right relation to the song or to the spoken word. Speech woke the elemental passion, and the speaker has his share in all that is to follow on his speech.
So too the soul that is man's better self may be set free in those that dream not of the existence of such a guardian. This influence may light them on to thoughts their ordinary life alone would never have enabled them to formulate, and this light may clarify their reason so that they will recognize a duty to humanity that their philosophy hitherto repudiated.
Speech is a mighty power that has yet hardly come into its right of recognition as a sacred art, to be most carefully cultivated and most wisely guarded. True, the wise ones of the world have taught the power of silence, and their disciples all have learned how to refrain from speech. True also that the speech of such men has a power far beyond the conception of the generality. Even the ignorant are entrusted by heredity with more power than that of which they dream. They incur unknown responsibility in the misuse of that art, which in their ignorance they honestly believe to be a personal right, which they may use at their own pleasure or caprice without restraint, and with no responsibility for all the evil their unguarded words evoke, and all the suffering that follows. To them the warning may seem but impertinence, an interference with their natural rights, yet it is more like a notice on a signboard warning the unwary of a danger they may easily avoid, the danger of speech. And this danger is real.
[From REINCARNATION: A LOST CHORD IN MODERN THOUGHT, pages 67-72.]
It is a fact surprising to nearly everyone in Western countries that reincarnation was taught practically universally over the earth at the time when Christ was born. But this is only because we have not been educated to associate this doctrine historically with the Jews or with the ancient Greeks and Romans. It is a still more surprising fact that it was accepted by some of the Church Fathers and prevailed so widely in early Christendom that, as late as the middle of the sixth century after Christ it was necessary to convene a special Church Council in order finally to suppress it. After that it faded from the intellectual and religious life of Europe and, though held sporadically down the centuries by a sect here and there or by a few great thinkers and mystics, it was not really restored to Western thought till it as reintroduced in the teachings of Theosophy. Now, after having been spread abroad for a century by the Theosophical Society, it is rapidly regaining its position as a world-belief.
Reincarnation has always been a characteristic part of the leading religions of the East, as every student of them knows. We cannot even think of the Brahmanical or Buddhist teachings without instantly remembering the tenet as taught therein. In Buddhism, owing among other things to its lack of bigotry, the teaching of human reembodiment has remained closer than in any other religion to the pure form of the belief. In exoteric Brahmanism it has been greatly disfigured, as seen in one of its excrescences already noted, the erroneous doctrine of the transmigration of the human Ego into the bodies of animals.
Many of the greatest men of antiquity taught reincarnation in various forms, among them being such great names as Orpheus, Pythagoras, Empedocles, Plato, Apollonius of Tyana, with Ennius and Seneca among the Romans. We find the doctrine in ancient Persia, also among the Druids and early Nordic peoples, while it was a cornerstone of the grand mystical religion of old Egypt. In China, it was a part of Taoism and its hold was deepened by the spread of Buddhism there.
In the Old Testament, we find very few convincing statements even as to man's survival after death, at least not in our popular conception of immortality, thereby showing how inadequate are those scriptures, as represented by Christian tradition, to give us a truly comprehensive picture of Jewish thought at the time. For reincarnation was expounded in the Kabala, the esoteric philosophy of the Jews -- their secret, mystic teaching; so did Philo, one of the greatest philosophers belonging to the Jewish race, and a renowned Neo-Platonist, teach it. So, also, did the celebrated Jewish historian Josephus. For Josephus was a Pharisee, and he himself recorded that this body believed in and taught reincarnation.
Here and there throughout the Bible, the idea of reincarnation is seen to be in the background of the writer's or speaker's thought, as when the disciples asked Jesus, "Who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?" (JOHN, ix, 2) But how could the man have sinned, excepting in a former life, to have been BORN blind? The disciples evidently took the truth of reincarnation for granted, nor did Jesus rebuke them for this in his reply. In MATT., xi, 14, Jesus said of John the Baptist: "And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come," a statement that he seems to repeat in MARK, ix, 13.
These things were of course unsuspected by those earnest men of the Middle Ages (almost totally ignorant of historical developments as they were) who interpreted the Old Testament according to their own unavoidable limitations. But Theosophy calls attention to this aspect of Jewish history so long overlooked.
A true picture of the intellectual world in the early days of Christianity is illuminating indeed! Such a picture can be constructed from materials supplied by many great writers. Though knowing nothing of Theosophy (like Legge for example who wrote FORERUNNERS AND RIVALS OF CHRISTIANITY), they yet present the most telling evidence that many doctrines, always considered in our education as so characteristic of Christianity, are direct or distorted reflections of the Mystery Teachings of the Archaic Wisdom.
The two principal sources from which early Christianity derived -- only to disfigure -- its mystical doctrines -- such as the Virgin Birth, the Passion of Christ, the Eucharist, Apostolic Succession, and others -- were the Gnostic philosophy and the Mithraic Mystery Religion. These two systems were genuine developments of the primeval Esoteric Wisdom, and they flourished in the early centuries of our era. Mithraism, indeed, very nearly became the accepted religion of the Roman Empire.
The Mithraic Religion in the third century of the Christian Era had reached such a stage of development that it all but became the dominant state-religion of the then wide-flung Roman Empire. In fact, it had so much that was similar, both in doctrine and in certain forms, to early Christianity, that this fact was commented upon by all intelligent writers of the time, both Christian and 'Pagan.' As it happened, Christianity, by reason of a number of interesting causes, finally prevailed over Mithraism as the dominant religious system of Europe.
-- G. de Purucker, THE ESOTERIC TRADITION, page 863
With its dogmas of the vicarious atonement, salvation by faith, and the practices that grew out of these beliefs, Christianity relieved the great mass of men from strenuous moral effort and lent itself to the designs of temporal and political aggrandizement.
Reincarnation was a leading tenet of Gnosticism and formed an integral part of the Mystery Teachings of Mithraism. From these influential and popular sources it was taken over by many early Christians. Several of the greatest of the early Church Fathers, as already stated, taught it in some form -- notably Bishop Synesius and, even later, Origen and Clement (later Saint Clement of the Christian Church) -- all of Alexandria, and the two latter believed to have been initiated into the Mystery Schools of their day. It looks as if these wise men were striving to keep alive in the new church a link with the living Wisdom Religion. The Manicheans, a mystical sect of Hither Asia in those early days, professed reincarnation and, adopting what might be regarded as the protective coloring of Christianity, had their share in popularizing an aspect of the doctrine. This sect bore an offshoot as late as the twelfth and thirteenth centuries: the Albigenses of Languedoc, who revived the teaching. But it had then been anathema for about seven hundred years, and they were, although with difficulty, savagely exterminated.
A long list could be cited of scholars, poets, and mystics of every country and century in Europe, who have believed in and taught reincarnation. If the reader is interested, an account of them with citations in evidence of their belief will be found in two volumes, REINCARNATION, AN EAST-WEST ANTHOLOGY, and REINCARNATION IN WORLD THOUGHT, both compiled and edited by Joseph Head and S.L. Cranston, which can be obtained from the theosophical and public libraries. The whole subject of reincarnation as a historical belief is worth looking into if only for the surprising and interesting facts, so long suppressed or forgotten, concerning the origin of what we call Christianity.
[From WIND OF THE SPIRIT, pages 78-80.]
I ask your very reverent attention to a profound and beautiful fact of nature. To me this thought is one of the most beautiful of our Theosophical doctrines. It is of the "angels" guarding us, what Christians call "Guardian Angels."
This wonderful doctrine, which is such a comfort and help to men in time of stress and trouble, is no longer understood by the Christians of this day, because they have lost the original meaning of it. They seem to think that it is an angel outside of oneself deputed by Almighty God to be a kind of protecting parent over the child. Some Christians seem to think that when the child attains adulthood the Guardian Angel departs. This doctrine of protective and guiding spiritual influences in the world is a very old doctrine of the Wisdom-Religion. It was taught in Persia, India, Egypt, amongst the Druids, and as far as I know, everywhere.
It is simply this: that there is in and over man a spirit or power guiding him, instilling hope and comfort and peace and righteousness into his mind and heart; and that he who is ready to receive this and does receive it will guide himself by the inner mandates, and do so openly. He will be more or less conscious of the companionship of the Guardian Angel, be conscious of this companionship as a helper, with him day and night, never failing, always guiding, teaching him to save himself. But the mind and heart must be ready to receive; otherwise, the brain does not catch the guidance and the inspiration.
What is this Guardian Angel? You may call it a Dhyani-Chohan. Our own particular technical name for it is the Sanskrit word: Chitkara: thought-worker. You remember it was stated of the great Greek philosopher, Socrates, that he was guided by his inner daemon, his constant companion, which in his case strangely enough never told him what to do, but always warned him what not to do. Frequently when he was undecided as to what course to pursue, he would go apart and close his eyes and remain quiet, trying to free his mind from all the debris, claptrap, noise, and burly-burly of tramping thoughts, in other words cleansing and emptying the brain so that the Guardian Angel inside could penetrate into the brain-stuff. Such in his case was the Guardian Angel.
Now what is this Guardian Angel? Is it outside of man? It is a part of man's spirit. It is pertinent to his pneumatology, not the human part, but rather a part of his spiritual being. You can call it the Higher Self, but I prefer to call it the Spiritual Self, because the phrase "Higher Self" in Theosophy has a meaning containing certain restricted ideas. Thus, man's inmost entity, the Guardian Angel, this spiritual self, is as a god compared with the man of flesh, the man of this brain. Compared with his knowledge, it has omniscience; compared with his vision, it has vision of the past, present, and future, which three really are but one eternal NOW in the ever present.
This Guardian Angel will always strive and is incessantly striving to guide its willful errant child, the man of flesh. There is the whole thing in a nutshell, and if you can make your mind pervious to this inner monitor, and follow its mandates, your life will be safe, happy, and prosperous.
Of course, you have to go through whatever your karma has for you, that is, whatever you have wrought in the past; it will have to work itself out. If you put your finger in the fire, it will be burned. If you catch your foot in the machine, it will be crushed. But the inner warrior, the Guardian Angel, once you come into its fellowship, in time will prevent your putting your finger into the fire, or placing your foot where it could be crushed.
As for myself, my own life has been saved six times by this, and I know whereof I speak. And I only blame myself for not having begun sooner as a younger man to try to cultivate and to try to bring about an even closer consciousness or self-realization of this wonderful guide, this divine spark, this spiritual self in me: the very stuff of divinity. Compared to me, my Guardian is an angel, a god.
The only difference between the ordinary man on the one hand and the Christ-man and the Buddha-man on the other is this: that we ordinary men have not succeeded in becoming absolutely at one with the Guardian Angel within, and the Buddhas and the Christs have. The Buddha or Christ is one who has made himself, his whole being, his heart, so pervious to the entrance of the Guardian Angel within him that that Guardian Angel within him has actually embodied himself, so that the lower man is scarcely any longer there. The Guardian Angel then speaks with the lips of flesh; it is the Bodhisattva, the inner Christ.
These are some of the forgotten values in human life, and I know no values greater than these two things. First: you are one with the universe, one with divinity, inseparable from it. Then it does not much matter what happens to you. Whatever comes is a part of the universal destiny. You become filled with courage, hope, and peace. And the other forgotten value is what I have just called the Chitkara. Let that Guardian Angel live in you and speak through you as soon as may be.
I speak what I know, not only with regard to saving from trouble and from peril, but from dangers of all kinds. It will instill peace, comfort, and happiness and wisdom and love, for all these are its nature. These things are especially needed in the world today by poor mankind, most of humanity feeling today that all the trouble in the world has happened by chance, that there is no way out except by a lucky fluke of fate. That is all tommyrot. This world is a world of law and order, and if we break these rules of law and order, we suffer.
Oh, that man would realize these simple verities of Universal Nature! They are so helpful. They give meaning to life and inject a marvelous purpose into it. They give incentive to do our jobs and to do them like men. They make us love our fellowmen. That is ennobling for us, an ennobling feeling in anyone, for it is obvious that the man who loves none but himself is constricting his consciousness into a little knot, and there is no expansion or grandeur in him. Whereas, the man who loves his fellowmen and thereby begins to love all things, both great and small -- his consciousness goes out, begins to embrace, comprehend, and to take in all. It becomes finally universal feeling, universal sympathy, universal understanding. This is grand, and this is godlike.
[Extracts from an address given at the Tremont Theater in Boston, Massachusetts from THE THEOSOPHICAL PATH, March 1920, pages 209-215.]
When one considers the life of Helena P. Blavatsky, the Foundress of the present Theosophical Movement and when one reads her splendid and wonderful books and has watched the general progress of her work, one must necessarily decide that she was an extraordinary woman in many ways. She must have had an urge of some kind -- we interpret it as a spiritual urge -- to come to the Western world to bring the message of brotherhood and place before the thinkers of the age those grand and superb principles that are the basic life, the foundation, of our Theosophical Society.
She chose America for the reason that she considered it free. She had read and heard that it was a land of liberty, that it had freedom of speech, that it was not under the control of the church, and that all religions were permitted. With the urge and love that she had for humanity, it was quite natural that she should come to America, yet I feel sure that in many ways she was much disappointed, though in other ways she was not.
It was in the seventies that she founded the Theosophical Society, the original Society that is now known as the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society. All her efforts were of a quality that makes it impossible for anyone to question her motive. In the first place, she detached from her work all idea of the dollar-and-cent influence. She received no salary. She declared that those who are earnestly and determinedly desirous of working for the advancement of humanity should make an effort to help without any selfish interest. This spirit has been carried out in the original Theosophical Society from the beginning.
When Mme. Blavatsky brought these teachings to America, she showed plainly that she was not bringing a new religion to the world, that in no sense had she originated Theosophy, and that the philosophy she presented was the philosophy of the ages, the Wisdom-Religion, taught long before Jesus was born. Her experience and her association with some of the greatest minds of the age had added greatly to her knowledge and her practical views of life. Her knowledge of the divine nature of man, her recognition of his latent qualities, made her seem to all who knew her not only as a woman possessing great erudition, but as one who had attained in some other life that rare discrimination and intuition that were necessary for her as a spiritual teacher.
The principal ideas that she presented, the principal teachings of Theosophy, are first the essential Divinity of Man, then his Duality; that there are two forces working in his nature, one for selfish and worldly interests, pleasures and passions, and the other for the upward way, for the advancement of his spiritual life, working ever to attain that state of perfection that Theosophy declares is man's destiny. Following this Duality, we come to the idea of Karma. Karma is the law of justice, and Madame Blavatsky's wonderful books contain so many expositions of this universal law that I wonder that the whole world is not already affected by Theosophy. Closely allied with the teaching of Karma is the doctrine of Reincarnation.
According to the ancient teachings and according to Madame Blavatsky's writings and the general belief of the members of the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society, man cannot live out his fullest life, he cannot attain to the full stature of perfect manhood, in one lifetime of seventy or a hundred years. Many lifetimes are needed; the great universal scheme of life furnishes for man opportunities after opportunities to find his way as a soul, as a divine being, through many schools of experience, and these experiences under the power of self-directed evolution will ultimately bring man to his own.
One of the special points I always try to bring out in this connection is that if we study the general aspects of the world today, and particularly the religious aspects, we find many earnest and devoted people depending to a large degree upon the brain-mind judgment to interpret the laws of life, as found in the Bible and other sacred books. Now according to Theosophy, the brain-mind has its place. It is the seat of the intellect. It is like an instrument in the hands either of a master-musician or of one who is not a master-musician. As long as the lower forces play through the chambers of the mind, the real light, the real knowledge, the true interpretation, that quality of intuition that belongs to every man and is a part of his inner life, cannot be accentuated.
To a large degree, I feel that we are depending too much on the outward life. We are living too much in the external. Our vision and our progress are limited by our lack of knowledge of the Higher Law. If we could once realize, as a Theosophist does after long study and much devotion, that the real life, the ever-growing eternal life, is within, the mind would become receptive to the higher knowledge and to that state of consciousness that is ever illuminated by the inner light.
Christ has taught this. St. Paul taught it. You will find it in all the sacred writings. The greatest thinkers and those who have given us the best examples of spiritual life have accentuated this fact. The truth, the knowledge, and the revelation to man of the divine laws must come from within.
I feel that if all down the ages from the beginning of Christianity there could have been this intuitive profound grasp of the true meaning of religion, if the early Fathers could have had it, there would have been different results. This is no reflection upon any who are sincere in their beliefs. I have no desire to criticize them. I am a reader of the sacred writings, I have a mind that dares to search for the truth, and I am satisfied that I should really be doing you a great injustice if I did not express my feelings.
In seeking to open your eyes, I am paying tribute to you as divine souls. My message, my effort, and the work of the members of the Theosophical Society is to lift the veil and to show humanity that there are potent forces within man and above him that can be utilized for the reconstruction of the human race -- not merely the reconstruction of our country, but of the whole human family.
There must come an awakening some time and, surely, no one could criticize me severely for bringing up this matter, for all must see the great need of a change. There must come a spiritual awakening. There must be new ideas, dynamic ideas, introduced into the human mind to bring about resuscitation, so to speak, of the spiritual part of man, which shall be a basis for that quality of reconstruction that shall touch the home, all systems of education, and religion, and shall ultimately become the most potent factor in readjusting all mankind.
If we had no crimes, if we had no prisons and lunatic asylums, if we were all following the rosy path, if we were never sick and had no difficulties to contend with, I should be much out of place, and you would have the right to say that my ideas are far-fetched. But you all know as well as I do that crime is increasing throughout the land, that unbrotherliness is the insanity of the age, that we have just emerged from a war of horrors, the cruelty of which has exceeded all that has ever been recorded in history, and so many people are asking, "Why did it happen? How could it happen? Where was God?"
Theosophists would say, and not in a presumptuous way, that the sowing of the seed began ages ago. Down through generations and generations of people, there has been something missing, the missing link so to speak, the lost Word. Man, ignorant of his Divinity, not being conscious of that power in him, not having full trust in the divine Law, not being able to interpret these simple doctrines of life, wandered away from the path.
Look at humanity today as it is physically. With a few exceptions, do we not see there is deterioration in the physical nature of man? It simply shows that we have not the basic ideas to depend on, to think with, to feel with, and to live by.
Now the Raja-Yoga System, which is based on these reconstructive ideas, has brought out in quite an interesting way the possibilities of human nature that are latent in all. The term "Raja-Yoga" is Sanskrit, which I chose as covering, better than any I have found, my ideas in reference to education. It means "Kingly Union," the balance and harmony of the physical, mental, and spiritual. Theosophy teaches that we cannot go through life one-sidedly and half awake. We have to reach a point of balance, and it should come to us in youth. I am certain that if the whole world could have had the training that is given in the Raja-Yoga College and School, we should have better conditions everywhere and life would be more joyful, hopeful, and optimistic. The world is crying for something new, for something that will adjust human affairs and prevent a repetition of what we have gone through in the last five years in this terrible warfare.
It was quite impossible for me to stay at our International Center of Theosophical work at Point Loma, for Theosophy has a message to the whole world. Though we are doing large propaganda work, in all lines of Theosophic thought, still the masses have not been reached yet. If we are going to serve humanity, we must throw aside creeds and dogmas and live in the fullest sense on a basis of right action, sustained by convictions warmed and inspired by that intuitive knowledge that comes to one who chooses to find the true path.
I am always slow in public meetings to say much about the development of the inner nature of man, because the world has been cursed for a number of years with all sorts of absurdities -- false, grotesque, and fanatical teachings of every kind in the name of religion and in the name of Theosophy. It seems almost unjust to our Theosophical work to attempt in one evening to call the attention of the public to the inner qualities of man. You will find self-styled Theosophists in this city and in other cities of America who will pretend to tell you all about your former incarnations, or about your future. They will teach you symbology, astrology, palmistry, and all sorts of weird things out of place for any sane man. They will try to impress you with their "mysticism." There are some nice people, I fancy, who are caught by the psychological influence of these claims.
For the twenty-five years that I have been connected with the Theosophical Society, it has been necessary to use much time, energy, and money to remove from the original Theosophical Society and from the name Theosophy itself the stigma that comes from the misuse of the word Theosophy by people who blend it with fanatical teachings.
If Theosophy is anything, it is practical, and no true Theosophist believes in preaching without doing. The whole aim of the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society is to make Theosophy a living power in the lives of men, to learn to discriminate between the lower and higher natures of man -- between right and wrong -- to exert all possible efforts to keep the ideals of Theosophy ever before us and to practice them, and to bring into the life of each the power of self-control.
In working for humanity, I have visited many of the prisons in this country and in Europe. I have studied criminology from all sides of the question. I have realized that crime will increase and so will insanity and that in the course of time we shall have new, unnamable diseases and many more vices for the reason that we have not the key to the situation. Human life cannot be reconstructed, nor national or international life, until we have carried the sublime teachings of Theosophy into the home, until we have reached a point where we can and should challenge men and women to take up home-life, marriage, and parenthood more seriously. We must challenge them, and bring about such an awakening in the minds of those who control the home, that their responsibilities shall become so sacred that they cannot err.
If we are to reconstruct human life, we must begin to build character. We must do it in childhood. We must touch the plastic, flexible minds of the children with that indescribable something that is so exquisitely beautiful that no language can name it, something that will awaken the soul in their childhood and bring them slowly and surely to that state of consciousness that will help them to meet the trials of life.
To reconstruct the nation, we must begin in the home, but according to my idea, we cannot do this unless there is an understanding of the self. There must be self-adjustment, self-improvement; there must be self-endeavor, self-directed evolution. Then the souls of the parents and the souls of the children will blossom like the flowers in the springtime, and many wonderful things will come to add to the stability and the happiness of the home.
This is not a fantastic dream of mine; it is a proven fact. The Raja-Yoga System has been active for nearly twenty years; it has passed the experimental stage, and these results have been demonstrated. It is all so easy and so beautiful, if one can only understand the laws governing human life.
Now of course it is not to be believed that anyone who is seeking for truth can reach a point of satisfaction in a day or an hour, or that any teacher can impart the truth sufficiently to carry one through life even for a day or a week, or that books will do it. The best literature we have on Theosophy will fail you absolutely, unless right down in your hearts is that yearning, longing, and quality of determination that will make you push on daringly and courageously.
If you study our Theosophical books, you will find that we are ever working to correct the errors of injustice. Believing absolutely that brotherhood is a fact in nature, all men are divine, and even the weakest and lowest have in them a spark of Divinity, there comes into our lives a deep sense of pity and compassion for all who suffer. We are obliged to free our consciences by trying to lift the burdens from the people, to remove the obstacles, and to bring understanding and enlightenment for all.
It is not an easy task -- I assure you -- because there are so many in the world satisfied with one life-experience, satisfied with creeds and dogmas. They look out and question the meaning of all the contrasts, idiosyncrasies, and failures in human life; they desire to help, they will give money, they will suffer, they will sacrifice, but they cannot give up their creeds and dogmas. There is where the trouble is. I am certain that if the great Initiate Jesus were here, he would say some things to the people that would be dynamic, some things that would stir the blood in one's being; he would give some reminders, possibly some reproofs. Remember, good friends, that Jesus had no church; remember also his Sermon on the Mount, which is Theosophy in every detail; and remember how he scorned the hypocrites. The hypocrites of our age present an outer aspect of learning and sanctity and a show of service to humanity; they go about misleading and blinding the people.
With this idea of reconstruction, though we may work hard and earnestly, though our Government may be successful in establishing a certain semblance of peace, yet for years -- and I say it determinedly -- we shall be under the shadow of such menacing forces that it will take all our intellectual and physical strength to bear the burden; and possibly after a few years, we may have other aspects of suffering even worse than during the war. Under these conditions, when humanity begins to deteriorate, when the world's pleasures become so destructive that they tear men and women from their moorings and send them adrift -- when it comes to this and we look at the whole picture with a larger perspective, then we shall begin to turn and ask more questions about life's meaning. From my standpoint, I cannot see how permanent reconstruction can be begun in any other way than by man setting out to find himself, find his moorings, find his way, his divinity, his soul, and begin the conquest of life individually.
There have been some interesting statements made by some of the most brilliant men of the times as to the means that we shall use for reconstruction. There can be no national and international reconstruction on a permanent basis of justice to all until the light breaks in on the minds of those in power, until the inner light comes home to them and refreshes their minds and lifts them to such a point of optimism and courage that they will find again in their hands the key that has been lost for ages -- the key for the salvation of man, the redemption of human life.
There is no other way. The uncertainty of the present hour, the uncertainty in all things, is not comfortable, and I question how I should live if I were not a Theosophist. Now you must not be alarmed by my earnest talk, or think that I am making any effort to convert you, for that is not so. We do believe in placing the truths before the people, that they may search for that light that is within, that they may bring about a conversion in their own natures by understanding that they themselves hold the key, and that by using it -- that is, by placing all that is below the divine in its place, and by strengthening the spiritual nature to such a degree that the power of self-control will go on and on from day to day -- their lives, as I said before, will unfold as the flowers do.
It is coming; it is in the air. Mme Blavatsky's work has not been in vain. When Mme Blavatsky first came to this country, where one met her full heartedly, dozens not only turned away from her but also persecuted her. Her life was a long life of suffering and persecution. Every system of thought that opposed her ideas, opposed her, and put obstacles in her way; but she lived, she carried on her work triumphantly. This great Theosophical Movement has extended all over the world, and it is the most serious movement of the age.
If there ever was a time when humanity should question the meaning of life, it is now; and if there ever was a time when there was an answer, it is now. For Theosophy, ancient and old as it is, is now bringing the message to the masses, to the rich and to the poor, to the ignorant and to the educated, that they may all partake of that knowledge that shall bring them eternal life.
[Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design: A Three-Pronged Approach to Answering the Big Questions of the Universe for Theosophists]
In the ongoing battle between religionists and scientists, Christian fundamentalists and Biblical literalists pit themselves against what they perceive as scientific atheists and agnostics. The debate rages over what we should teach our children about the Universe and particularly about the Earth on which they live. To those on the various sides of the now three-pronged debate, belief and faith still appear to trump scientific proof.
In adding the third leg to the either/or debate of evolution vs. creationism, Intelligent Design is seen by its detractors as an approach to teaching religion without overtly calling it "creationism." Whatever it is, Intelligent Design has added a complexity to the debate that some see as an "all or nothing" war, now with three mutually exclusive schools of thought. Yet, what if there is a "middle way," an inclusionary view of these three prongs?
Unlike our Christian brethren, Theosophists have nothing to fear from these three schools of thought. In THE SECRET DOCTRINE, HPB explains the three and their relationship to each other. She removes the misunderstandings surrounding Darwinian evolution, the misperception that the term "creation" causes, and looks at the intelligent designers of the Universe. She wrote this long before these three prongs became a lightening rod for Christian Fundamentalists.
EVOLUTION
Evolution is a theory. Yes, scientifically speaking, it is a theory that has many provable points, but they exist alongside many gaps that scientists cannot quite fill in. Nicholas DiGiacomo of Telluride, Colorado, in a guest commentary written for the Denver Post in August of 2005, notes:
Theories weave facts, observations, ideas, and hypotheses into coherent explanations by a pains-taking process of analysis and synthesis. They are fluid -- always subject to revision as more is learned about the world. In everyday life, however, people expect facts to be true and final.
To avoid confusion on this important point, scientists and educators should stop calling evolution a fact, and take the time to explain just what it means for something to be a theory.
Mr. DiGiacomo knows whereof he speaks, being a scientist who worked for a number of well-known companies including the European Center for Particle Physics. He continues,
Scientists and educators should avoid saying that we've proven the theory of evolution, and patiently explain how remarkably well evolution has held up to everything that's been thrown at it.
Remember that evolution is a theory. James Q. Wilson, in a Wall Street Journal editorial entitled FAITH IN THEORY writes, "The theory of evolution has not been proved as fully as the theory of gravity. There are many gaps in what we know about prehistoric creatures." (12/24/2005)
As such, evolution does not have to exclude the involvement of a God or some type of Intelligent Designer or architect. In fact, scientists are more willing to include such in their hypothesis of evolution than religionists are to include the possibility of evolution in their creation theory. Mr. Wilson writes, "[Evolution] ... literally the only scientific defensible theory of the origin of species, does not ... rule out the idea that God exists."
Sharon Begley, a science writer for the Wall Street Journal, in her column "Despite Appearances, Science Doesn't Deny the Existence of God," notes "it's easy to get the idea that science starts with an atheistic, or at least agnostic, presumption." (01/27/2006) Begley points to a report by the National Academy of Sciences that says science "is limited to explaining the natural world through natural causes" and another statement by the National Science Teachers Association that science "cannot use supernatural causation in its explanations." Yet, it is not a foregone conclusion that a scientist cannot include some sort of deity in the hypothesis.
In Letters to the Editor responding to an article on Intelligent Design that appeared in Chemical & Engineering News (02/07/2006, page 3), Tina M. Masciangioli of Arlington, VA, writes "Evolution provides a framework for understanding how organisms appear and change through modifications in genetic composition during successive generations subjected to natural selection. Absence of a creator is not requisite for this development to occur." (08/29/2005, page 4)
Brian Amos of New York City also responds in the same Letters section, "I noticed that not one of these letters [to the editor] decrying evolution observed that a belief in God is not incompatible with believing in evolution, any more than a belief in gravity is. The ultimate source of gravity may be a divine finger pressing down on us, but the theory of gravity still holds fine."
Still another reader writes, "As to evolution, for the sake of discussion, why could it not be the tool of the intelligent designer?" (William S. Durrell, Palm Harbor, Florida)
Why not indeed! I think HPB would concur completely! THE SECRET DOCTRINE makes it clear that evolution plays a key role in the development of the Universe, the Earth, Mankind and all the flora and fauna upon the Earth. Blavatsky points out that since there is not anything that can be created EX NIHLO (from nothing); the use of the word "creation" is incorrect. Rather, she says, "we believe in evolution out of preexisting materials."
Some preexisting materials may be beyond the scope of what can be seen -- in the range of quantum possibility, the "strings" of string theory -- and therefore are so transparent and minute as to be beyond the five temporal senses. For Blavatsky, Cosmic Evolution is the very act of bringing "into existence all the various states of being in the manifested solar system [in] obedience to the Ideation of the Universal Mind."
Likewise, man is not created from nothing. "Hence the esoteric teaching is absolutely opposed to the Darwinian evolution, AS APPLIED TO MAN AND PARTIALLY so with regard to other species," Blavatsky says. Theosophy is opposed to the idea that all things came from a single-cell, and Blavatsky sees many problems with pure Darwinism as the answer to how everything on the earth came to be.
She speaks of the Seven Creations, which she says are in actuality seven periods of Evolution. There are six periods of "active evolution" followed by one "passive period" or day of rest, the Sabbath Day of the Old Testament. She questions the mind of the "Scientific brain of a materialist," and asks, "What is Evolution?" She then challenges the scientists of her day to define evolution, and says they would not be able to define it better than Webster in his dictionary would: "the act of unfolding; the process of growth, development; as the evolution of a flower from a bud, or an animal from the egg." (II, 652-653)
Mr. Wilson's editorial in the Wall Street Journal notes that,
Isaac Newton was a deeply religious man. No doubt, he thought that the Newtonian laws he discovered existed because of God's handiwork. Charles Darwin, though he started his adult life as a deep believer and a student intending to enter the ministry, abandoned any belief that God has created animal species and replaced that view with his extraordinary, and largely correct, theory of evolution.
Blavatsky would disagree. She sees the benefits of evolution and indeed acknowledges the evolutionary progress of Man through the various ages and stages from the transparent beings of eons ago to the dense creatures we are today as we continue to move toward "evolutionary perfection." Even so, she disagrees with the Darwinians. She notes, "Neither Occultism nor Theosophy has ever supported the wild theory of the present Darwinists -- least of all the descent of man from ape." (I, 186) She is quite adamant about that fact, and repeats again that Man was NEVER an ape "in this or any other Round." (I, 187)
She does state that "Every Round repeats on a higher scale the evolutionary work of the preceding Round," thus acknowledging that evolution plays a critical role in the continuing development of Man as well as other sentient beings. How did our physical body get to the state of perfection it is found in now? "Through millions of years of evolution, of course, yet never through, or from, animals, as taught by materialism." (I, 211) While our bodies continued through the state of evolution and reached the form that we recognize as Man, the mind's evolution is another matter: Evolution of the "mind is a slower and more difficult evolution than the physical frame." (I, 188)
CREATION
One of the primary problems with creationism is that it does not require proof -- only belief that the Bible (specifically the Old Testament account of creation) is the literal and inerrant word of God. For many believers, that is enough. No scientific proof is needed. After all, belief has nothing to do with proof or truth. If one believes, that becomes one's truth. No questions asked.
Dr. Walt Brown PhD, geologist by profession, comments on natural selection in his book IN THE BEGINNING: COMPELLING EVIDENCE FOR CREATION AND THE FLOOD. He notes that "Natural selection cannot produce new genes; it only selects among preexisting characteristics. As the word 'selection' implies, variations are reduced, not increased."
While Brown takes the Christian perspective, his comments support those of H.P. Blavatsky in THE SECRET DOCTRINE, something that I am sure would surprise Brown. His aim is to confirm positively that the earth was created in a few days through cataclysmic events and that evolution, a contributing factor on a micro-scale over the past few thousand years, is not responsible for the macro-scale mutations of man from a single-celled amoeba that climbed out of the ocean.
Commenting on mutations, Brown notes that
Mutations are the only known means by which new genetic material becomes available for evolution. Rarely, if ever, is a mutation beneficial to an organism in its natural environment. Almost all observable mutations are harmful; some are meaningless; many are lethal. No known mutation has ever produced a form of life having greater complexity and viability than its ancestors.
-- page 6
He makes another interesting note: "There is no direct evidence that any major group of animals or plants arose from any other major group. Species are observed only going out of existence (extinctions), never coming into existence." (Pg. 7) As a geologist, he points to "out-of-place fossils" that "conflict with the evolutionary time scale" and other gaps that show how evolution alone cannot account for the variety of species.
Brown also notes that "genetic distances" exist between varying life forms, proving that all species did not appear from a single-celled life form. "Techniques now exist for measuring the degree of similarity between forms of life. These 'genetic distances' are calculated by taking a specific protein and examining the sequence of its components ... The fewer changes needed to convert a protein of one organism into the corresponding protein of another organism, supposedly the closer their relationship ... These studies seriously contradict the theory of evolution."
Blavatsky notes in THE SECRET DOCTRINE that a German scientist in 1812 published a work "in which he shows, with great integrity, that Darwin was wholly mistaken in tracing man back to the ape." (I, 185)
Who are these Creators by whose very existence imply creationism? Blavatsky says these creative gods "are the active manifestations of the One Supreme Energy." They are the Elohim of the Old Testament and in other ancient traditions are known as Archons or as the Demiurge (literally half-maker in the Greek) in Gnosticism. They are "framers, shapers, and ultimately the creators of all the manifested universe." (I, 22) They are "intelligible; they inform and guide [the manifested universe]; they are the intelligent Beings who adjust and control evolution," and "embody themselves in the Laws of Nature." This "Cosmic Evolution" she says, "which, in obedience to the Ideation of the Universal Mind, brings into existence all the various states of being in the manifested solar system." (I, 110)
We understand that these Creators use preexisting matter. With Mind and Word, they use evolution to bringing "into existence" all the species. They adapt some species to the continual changes in our environment, including climate changes, pole reversals, and other natural phenomenon. Meanwhile, they allow some species to die off, becoming extinct like the Mammoths, which scientists have studied extensively over the past 200 years, curious about their sudden extinction.
According to Brown, most of the fleshy remains of mammoths have been found in the permafrost in northern Siberia inside the Arctic Circle. By the number of tons of tusks that have been uncovered in this region, Brown says that scientists estimate there were some five million of them living in this small region. Other bones found indicate a great variety of animals lived in the Northern reaches of Asia and Europe, he notes, including tiger, antelope, camel, horse, donkey, musk ox, badger, ibex, woolly rhinoceros, fox, giant bison, lynx, leopard, wolverine, Arctic hare, lion, elk, giant wolf, ground squirrel, cave hyena, bear and many types of birds. (IN THE BEGINNING, 162)
With so many animals remains preserved so well in these northern climes, Brown suggests that at one time the region was well suited to sustaining all of them. The climate was more temperate. Vegetation was lush and plentiful. There was plenty of fresh, accessible water, salt, and with the examination of the contents of the stomachs of mammoths that appear to have been instantaneously frozen, there were plenty of "temperate species of grasses." Dr. Brown notes the abundance of scientific proof that some cataclysmic event suddenly froze and rapidly buried these animals.
Twenty-four pounds of undigested vegetation were removed from the Berezovka [a 50-year-old male mammoth uncovered in 1900 near Siberia's Berezovka River by Dr. Otto F. Herz] and analyzed by Russian scientist V.N. Sukachev. He identified more than 40 different species of plants: herbs, grasses, mosses, shrubs, and tree leaves. Many no longer grow that far north; others grow both in Siberia and as far south as Mexico.
-- IN THE BEGINNING, 165
Blavatsky talks about the various Ages and the disputes that went on in her day concerning the time of these Ages and their lengths. "But the main point for us lies not in the agreement or disagreement of the Naturalists as to the duration of geological periods, but rather in their perfect accord on one point, for a wonder, and this a very important one." She writes:
They all agree that during the "Miocene Age" -- whether one or ten million years ago -- Greenland and even Spitzbergen, the remnants of our Second or Hyperborean Continent, "had ALMOST A TROPICAL CLIMATE." Now the pre-Homeric Greeks had preserved a vivid tradition of this 'Land of the Eternal Sun,' whither their Apollo journeyed yearly. "During the Miocene Age, Greenland (in N. Lat. 70 degrees) developed an abundance of trees, such as the Yew, the Redwood, the Sequoia, allied to the Californian species, Beeches, Planes, Willows, Oaks, Poplars and Walnuts, as well as Magnolia and Zamia," says Science; in short Greenland had Southern plants unknown to Northern regions.
-- THE SECRET DOCTRINE, II, 11
In speaking of these changes during the various Ages, Blavatsky says,
The form and physical structure of the fauna changing at the same time, as they had to be adapted to the ever-changing conditions of life on this globe during the geological periods of its formative cycle.
-- I, 183
While these beings are known esoterically as "creator gods," Blavatsky does not believe the word "creation" aptly describes the formation of our Universe, the world on which we live or the beings that inhabit the Earth. "Creation is an incorrect word to use," she notes in THE SECRET DOCTRINE, "as no religion, not even the sect of the Visishtadvaitins in India -- one which anthropomorphizes even Parabrahman -- believes in creation of out nihil [nothing], as Christians and Jews do, but in evolution out of preexisting materials." (I, 233)
Yet, even the Old Testament notes that Man was "formed from the dust of the ground," (Genesis 2:7) which is the second story of creation. It differs in this way from the first story of creation in which "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female, created he them." (Genesis 1:27)
If evolution is a tool of creation, creation is a mere organizing component the Elohim used to "form" mankind -- and indeed all sentient and non-sentient beings, flora and fauna -- from materials that were existent in the Universe. If Christians of today were to know of HPB and what she said about evolution as seen through the eyes of the "materialists" of her day, they might think she was on their side of the debate.
In our modern day the mere assertion that there exists a power which can create human forms -- ready-made SHEATHS for the "CONSCIOUS monads" ... to incarnate within is, of course, ridiculous! That which is regarded as quite natural, on the other hand, is the production of a Frankenstein's monster PLUS moral consciousness, religious aspirations, genius, and a feeling of one's own immortal nature within one's self -- by physio-chemical forces, guided by blind Almighty Evolution.
As to the origin of that man, not EX NIHLO, cemented by a little red clay, but from a living divine Entity consolidation the astral body with surrounding materials -- this conception is too absurd even to be mentioned in the opinion of the materialists. Nevertheless, Occultists and Theosophists are ready to have their claims and theories -- however unscientific and superstitious at first glance -- compared as to their intrinsic, AS APPLIED TO MAN, AND PARTIALLY so with regard to other species.
Blavatsky speaks of the "latent potentialities" that exist in every "seed" or "egg" that account for the "gradual development, the unfolding of the thousand and one forms or phases of evolution, through which they must pass before the flower or the animal are fully developed. Hence, the future plan, if not a Design, MUST BE THERE." (II, 653)
INTELLIGENT DESIGN
Intelligent design implies an intelligent designer or architect. The Ancients had no problem with this idea. In fact, the term did not actually imply "God," but merely implied an architect capable of taking what was already in existence -- matter -- and designing something with purpose and meaning out of it. This was done much alike today's architects utilize wood, steel, bricks, cement, and glass in the design of a beautiful building to house a business or a family.
Looking at esoteric literature from ancient times, intelligent design is obviously not a "Christian" philosophy. Far from it! Christians would usurp the intelligent design theory as a backdoor proof of an anthropomorphic God. While God may well be the "architect," it is evident from reading Blavatsky and Gnostic writings that the architect is not the one responsible for the building.
After the architects have developed the design, the builders build it using the materials specified by the architect. As Blavatsky explains, a different group of Creators or Architects is responsible for the work of each Round. They also appointed supervisors under special guidance of special Builders and Watchers, the various Dhyani-Chohans. (I, 233) The Architect in Blavatsky's writings resembles the Intelligent Designer of today's conversations. Remember that the Architects are not the Builders. They are separate. Architects design and the Builders build.
"There is design in the action of the seemingly blindest forces," Blavatsky writes. "The whole process of evolution with its endless adaptations is a proof of this." This idea of tying design in with evolution is one that scientists are beginning to recognize. Does an intelligent designer preclude evolution or is evolution the method the intelligent designer uses to allow species adaptability and survivability?
Blavatsky notes that,
The underlying [cause of] physiological variation in species -- one to which all other laws are subordinate and secondary -- is a subconscious intelligence pervading matter, ultimately traceable to a reflection of the Divine and Dhyani-Chohanic [architectural] wisdom.
-- THE SECRET DOCTRINE, I, 649
Blavatsky asks her readers to examine a paper on evolution:
Dr. A. Bourges -- read by its author, a member of the Paris Anthropological Society, at a recent official meeting of the latter -- called EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY: THE EVOLUTION OF SPIRIT, ETC. (1884), in which he reconciles entirely the two teachings -- namely, those of the physical and spiritual evolutions. He explains the origins of the variety of organic forms, made to fit their environments with such evident intelligent design, by the existence and the mutual help and interaction of two principles in (manifest) nature, the inner Conscious Principe adapting itself to physical nature and the innate potentialities in the latter.
-- THE SECRET DOCTRINE, II, 654
Intelligent design MUST be the third leg of the stool upon which it all stands, and there can be no room for what Blavatsky calls "BLIND FORCES" and "NO DESIGN" of anything in our known Universe.
When no SANE man of Science would hesitate to say that, even from the little he knows and has hitherto discovered of the forces at work in Kosmos, he sees very plainly that every part, every speck and atom are in harmony with their fellow-atoms, and these with the whole, each having its distinct mission throughout the life-cycle.
-- THE SECRET DOCTRINE, II, 654
WHERE ARE WE NOW?
Can the quantum physicists find "intelligence?" If they succeed, will they have found Mind? Perhaps the Mind of a Creator (Architect) who informs all the intelligence of the Universe and allows the methodology of evolution to maintain order, balance, and adaptation of the macro-creation, is the force behind evolution as well.
We begin exploring the Web of the Universe, the Akashic Field in which the vibratory energy of the universe resides. Doing so, we discover that all three "theories" operate in harmony. All three are involved in our lives as we evolve. We -- humans, souls, and gods -- are moving toward the Divine Mind of the one from whom we emanated.