THEOSOPHY WORLD ------------------------------------ August, 2001

An Internet Magazine Dedicated to the Theosophical Philosophy
And its Practical Application in the Modern World

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to theos-world@theosophy.com.

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CONTENTS

"Passing on Theosophy," by Eldon B. Tucker
"Our Real Friends," by B.P. Wadia
"The Theosophy of Jesus," Part II, by John Gayner Banks
"The Origin of Fiction, Part I, by Kenneth Morris
"The Road of Ingardi," by Victor Endersby
"The Theosophy of George Russell (AE)," by H.F. Norman
"Initiation," Part II, by Osvald Siren
"The Ascending Cycle," by George William Russell
"Fraternization and Networking: Yesterday and Today," Part I,
    by W. Emmett Small
"Is There a Spiritual Science," Part II, by Boris de Zirkoff

==================================================================

> It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative
> expression and knowledge.
>
> -- Albert Einstein

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PASSING ON THEOSOPHY

By Eldon B. Tucker

There has been discussion on the theosophical mailing lists about
how we might keep the original message of Theosophy alive for the
present and future generations.

We must first ask ourselves, "What is that basic message?" Is it
an accurate representation of the dead letter of the printed
page? Is a photographic facsimile of the original editions of our
earliest literature the message itself?

I would say "no" to that. The message is an understanding of the
materials. This goes beyond what is in the physical book. If
people only needed the books, the Theosophical Movement could
entirely consist of publishing houses and static web sites.

There is more to it than that. Someone needs to understand what
the words mean. Someone needs to be able to explain the ideas in
terms of current thought. Someone needs to tutor, encourage, and
inspire new students.

Each theosophical group has current members whom offer to new
students their understanding of what Theosophy means. The
keynote and slant of the philosophy varies with the groups. It
is possible to characterize the general viewpoint of each
theosophical society or organization, although each particular
lodge and student has his or her own unique viewpoint.

We keep Theosophy alive by learning more, building what we have
learned into our lives, and sharing with others. That sharing
can be in any creative endeavor, although within the context of a
theosophical group, it may come out in terms of offering
thoughtful and responsive comments in study classes, and in
helping sparking a deeper interest in new students.

The basic theosophical texts may change over time. Future
generations may edit them as the English language changes. Years
from now, theosophical workers may supplement or replace texts
with later works. Their intent would be to assist new students.
Through the generations, the Message goes forward unimpeded.

Some assume we will never fully understand the meaning of what
Blavatsky wrote, that Blavatsky wrote things that are forever
beyond us. That argument would continue with the claim that we
should leave everything untouched, even misspellings of Sanskrit
terms, because there could be some profoundly esoteric meaning
hidden in the apparent mistake. I would disagree and say this
represented the worship of the dead letter of Theosophy.

Let us not turn our backs on the deeper side of Theosophy. We do
not find it in the hope of reaching even more subtle and profound
metaphysics from our studies. It is something different,
something in addition to thought.

We find the heart of Theosophy in a fire of spirit that lights up
what we think, feel, and do. It is a sense of inspiration, of
enthusiasm, of creativity that leads us to do things to brighten
and enliven the world without regard to personal benefit of any
kind. We feel a sense of having giving birth to something of
value in its own right, with all our awareness on "this new thing
coming forth into the world" rather than on "how wonderful a
person I must be in being able to do such great things."

The Theosophical Movement started with a bright spark of such a
flame. Sharing that innocent wonder and desire to share, people
have carried it forward. It is independent of the dead letter of
the literature. The printed books are a technique, a particular
means to bring new students to a higher awareness, and are not
the end goal of theosophical effort.

Although it is subtle, it is sometimes possible for us to tell if
this message of the spirit appears in our writings and the
writings of fellow students. If someone has produced a clever
writing, and the ideas are good, there may be the intellectual
challenge of a good puzzle-solving session. This type of writing
may be good metaphysics, but still may be devoid of the spirit.

The higher writing may not be as clever in metaphysics, but grips
us, shakes us, makes us pause and wonder. It tugs at our
heartstrings, our thinking, and our sense of purpose in life.
The higher writing has the world-stopping impact of a glimpse of
a wonderful mountain panorama, of children happily at play, of
the death of a loved one, or of an opening door to wondrous
mysteries as we encounter some treasure of a book or make a new
friend.

We do pass on the theosophical message when offering a clever
twist to the standard metaphysics, showing that we have solved a
tad more of the philosophical jigsaw puzzle presented us in the
literature. We pass it on when learning to write with something
more, with spiritual light. Such writing is not pretentious. It
does not seem phony, empty, or repellant. Only when we pretend
to write that way would we reveal in our words a lack of
genuineness that people would sense, causing them to turn away.

How do we do it? It has to do with working on our inner lives.
It has to do with caring about what we want to share. This
subtle skill may take many, many lifetimes to prefect. We do not
just sit down and become an effective spiritual teacher at first
try. The way to do it is simple, though. We just pick things of
noble purpose and value to the world, things that we love, and we
do them. We share in whatever way we can, making mistakes at
times, but never looking back to regret the past. We just
nurture within a greater creativity and sharing, and live it out
in our lives.

When we sit down to share Theosophy, keep this in mind. A good
quote may be fine by itself, but cannot replace a genuine sharing
from deep within.

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OUR REAL FRIENDS

by B.P. Wadia

[From THUS HAVE I HEARD, pages 16-18.]

> Their very hearts and minds are in me; enlightening one another
> and constantly speaking of me, they are full of enjoyment and
> satisfaction. To them thus always devoted to me, who worship me
> with love, I give that mental devotion by which they come to me.
> For them do I out of my compassion, standing within their hearts,
> destroy the darkness that springs from ignorance by the brilliant
> lamp of spiritual discernment.
>
> -- THE BHAGAVAD GITA, X, 9-11

During this month, the Hindu religionists and mystics of
discerning heart of every faith will celebrate Krishna's
Nativity. He is called SHABDA BRAHMAN, which the ancient Greeks
designated as the Logos, the Christians as the Word made Flesh.

Does the Divine Incarnation recognized by followers of every
faith, whether as Krishna, Christos, or by any other name, and
whether His Natal Day is observed in August, in December, or at
any other time, give us an intimation of the Great Reality -- the
effect of the cause which is concealed, but which can be sensed
and realized?

How should we think of the Ever-Living Divine Presence, the
Incomprehensible Omniscience, the Mysterious Impersonality, ever
invisible, intangible, indescribable, and yet omnific? Instinct
and reason alike compel us to regard Deity as the Unavoidable.
Intuition, or Pure and Compassionate Reason, illumines the whole
field of our ideation by revealing the magical activity of the
Deity, which expresses the purposeful fitness of all things. It
is the Necessity. Without it, right living becomes impossible.

In the Fourth Chapter of THE BHAGAVAD GITA, Krishna offers in a
simple way a profound truth. He says to Arjuna that he has
communicated to him the Ancient, Secret Wisdom, because "thou art
my devotee and my friend."

Enveloped by fear of decay and destruction, men and women seek a
sense of security. Most of them miss out the one sure source of
security, the immortal nature of the human soul. Our
civilization and modern learning teach a false twisted psychology
of the soul. We have at the core of our being an innate
"something" which prompts us to a belief in the soul. Our
upbringing makes short work of that belief. The results are
disastrous.

Devotion and friendship of the highest order manifest in three
ways. (1) There is devotion and friendship between our mortal
mind and its immortal counterpart, the Shining One. (2) There is
devotion and friendship between our personal mind-soul as a
learner and the Gracious Guru, the embodiment of pure love and
true knowledge. (3) There is devotion and friendship among all
learners of the True, among fellow disciples who are pilgrims to
the Sacred City of Light.

Krishna loves his alter ego Arjuna as his friend because he finds
Arjuna's heart full of devotion. Those who are Kshatriya souls,
fortune's favored soldiers, have their Divinity close to them.
Fighting the carnal nature that is the constant enemy of man on
earth, they find the Constant Friend nearby. Krishna, the
Christos, is nearer than hands and feet.

Krishna also represents the Gracious Guru, the Teacher, prepared
to deliver us "from all transgressions." The qualifications are
most difficult of attainment. Arjuna gains them at the very end,
in the Eighteenth Chapter of THE BHAGAVAD GITA. Those who merely
say "Krishna, Krishna" are not the disciples. The disciples are
those who place their hearts upon Him as He has declared Himself
to be. Most "devotees" have their fanciful image of the Guru.
What is it that is taught to the pupil? The pupil is taught a
secret that must never be revealed.

A Guru has numerous disciples: true learners, intelligent
devotees, intimate friends. Such are few and they form a
Fellowship, a Companionship. Of such fellow disciples, it is
said that their attention is concentrated on the Guru. With
every breath, they inhale the vital magnetism. With every
exhalation, they speak the wisdom of the Guru and feel full of
Beatitude and Bliss.

The intimation of the Most High brings us along three ways the
sure sense of security from fears of disease, decay, and death.
This knowledge is what men need. How many know that it is
available? Let us seek within the heart the light of the purified
mind. In our attempt, we are aided and encouraged by fellow
soldiers. Fighting their own battles, they are achieving their
own successes. The Great Chain called the Guruparampara reveals
our true Gurus: the Lovers and Benefactors of the human race.

Thus have I heard.

------------------------------------------------------------------
THE THEOSOPHY OF JESUS, Part II

By John Gayner Banks, DST

[From THE THEOSOPHICAL FORUM, January 1939, pages 36-51. It
comes from a talk given at the Katherine Tingley Lodge of The
Theosophical Society, San Diego, California in April 1938.]

"To you, little ones, my children," said Jesus, in substance, "I
tell you plainly the Mysteries of The Kingdom of the Heavens."

Can we gain access to these Christian Mysteries today? Yes, if we
will pay the price. We catch the echoes of these Mysteries in
the Sermon on The Mount. Millions read the words. How many
achieve that blessedness (really illumination) there referred to
in those words? Those who read the words intellectually may
absorb their ethical and esoteric meaning, but if they are not
living the life, they miss the true illumination that Jesus
wanted his hearers to seek and find. The word "blessed" is
sometimes translated "happy," but I think you will agree that the
word "blessed" transcends the idea conveyed by the word "happy."

Test this thought by reading slowly and thoughtfully the
"beatitudes" as given in Matt. 5:1-12. That "Blessedness"
referred to frequently in the Sermon on The Mount is something
that comes by doing. It is what some call good karma (as
distinct from bad karma). It does not usually come from reading
and study. It does come by following the Master, by becoming a
true Chela.

Is this experience the monopoly of profound spiritual initiates?
It would not seem so. Turn to Luke 10, and you will read a
fascinating story of how Jesus sent out no less than seventy of
His disciples to demonstrate the truth of the things they had
learned. Do not allow yourself to be too intrigued by the
numerology here indicated. Doubtless, that number seventy has a
mystical meaning, but for the moment follow the immediate trend
of this story.

They were a mixed crowd, made up of artisans and fishermen and
tax-gatherers and other plebeians. Yet they had accepted the
path of Initiation. They were under orders. Their orders were
to go out, two by two, into every town and place where Jesus
intended to visit later. He told them -- and the words signify
far more than appears on the surface -- that "the harvest truly
is rich, but the laborers are few." He told them to take no purse
or wallet, no sandal. They were even to dispense with the usual
formalities and salutations. They were commissioned with unusual
powers. Wherever they were received, Jesus said they were to eat
what was provided for them. They were to heal the sick and they
were to proclaim that the Reign of God was at hand. Perhaps it
has already begun for those who could see spiritually. There
were other instructions given.

What was the result? Could such a fantastic mission possibly
succeed? The results of the Mission will surprise the reader,
especially those who read the story for the first time. Luke
tells us that the seventy came back with joy. "Lord," they said,
"the very demons obey us in your name!" Jesus did not rebuke
their enthusiasm. He said gently, "Do not rejoice because the
demons obey you; rejoice because your names are enrolled in
heaven." (Luke 10:17-20, [Moffatt])

COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS

This spectacle of the returning seventy also brings out a touch
of Cosmic Consciousness which the reader can behold in Jesus
Himself, for as He welcomes these disciples back from their first
mission, He:

> thrilled with joy at that hour in the Holy Spirit, saying, "I
> praise Thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for concealing
> this from the wise and learned and revealing it to the
> simple-minded; yes, Father, I praise Thee that such was thy
> chosen purpose"!

Then, turning to the disciples, he said privately:

> Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! for I tell you that
> many prophets and kings have desired to see what you see, but
> they have not seen it; and to hear what you hear, but they have
> not heard it.

Among those early Christian Fathers of the Church who held and
taught the Esoteric Tradition, three deserve to be mentioned:
Clement of Alexandria (Second century); Origen, likewise of the
Alexandrian School (Second and Third century); and Synesius, a
Neoplatonist Bishop, who lived in the Fourth and Fifth centuries.
Synesius was the warm friend and student of Hypatia, whose
unfortunate, tragic end is described by Charles Kingsley in his
novel HYPATIA.

Dr. de Purucker tells us that the Alexandrian scholar and Church
Father Origen taught many things so curiously like (in certain
respects) to the Theosophical doctrines, that were one to change
names and manner of phrasing, one could probably find in these
particular teachings a good deal of the Esoteric Philosophy.

JESUS AS AN ADEPT

Nobody who has really studied the Life and Teachings of Jesus the
Christ can question his place among the Masters of all ages of
authentic human history. We recognize His Masterhood or
Adeptship by virtue of the life he lived as well as by virtue of
the revelation or Teaching which he gave.

His teachings have come down to us only in fragmentary form.
Those Teachings have been obscured in places by bad translation
and even perhaps occasionally by the carelessness of those who
orally transmitted them before they were committed to writing.
Even so, to the sincere with ears to hear and heart to
understand, there is in the recorded utterances of Jesus a key to
unlock the Mysteries of the Ages. They might find therein the
mystical and occult Wisdom, which is the goal of the Theosophist.

ILLUMINATION

There is a western term used for the great Masters of Wisdom that
appeals to me. It is "Illuminate," the plural being
"Illuminati." The best definition is given in Dr. R.M. Bucke's
book, COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS. An illuminate is one who has at any
time and under any circumstances achieved Cosmic Consciousness.
He gives in his book thirty-six examples of Cosmic Consciousness,
including Jesus the Christ in a conspicuous place. According to
this authority, Christ's possession of this highest form of
illumination is best illustrated in the frequent references to
the Kingdom of God or The Kingdom of Heaven. To appreciate what
this means, we must learn to use these terms more conservatively.
We must catch the idea that seems always to have been in the mind
of Jesus when he referred to the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of
Heaven.

About the age of thirty (according to the New Testament
narrative), a marked change took place in Jesus. Whereas up to a
certain age he was very much as others, he all at once ascended
to a spiritual level quite over the heads of ordinary men. Those
who knew him at home, as a boy and a young man, could not
understand him. "Is not this the carpenter's son," they asked.
As reported elsewhere, "Is not this the carpenter, the son of
Mary? ... and they were offended at him." (Matt. 8:55 and Mark
6:3) This marked spiritual ascent occurring suddenly at this age
is in itself almost diagnostic of the cosmic consciousness.
Reading between the lines, we get a clue in the story of the
Baptism of Jesus:

> Straightway, coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens rent
> asunder, and the Spirit as a Dove descending upon him; and a
> Voice came out of the heavens saying, "Thou art my Beloved Son in
> Whom I am well pleased." Straightway, the Spirit drives him forth
> into the wilderness.
>
> -- Mark 1:10-12

The fact that Jesus went to John to be baptized shows that his
mind was directed to religion and makes it probable that he had
(before illumination) the earnest temperament out of which (when
at all) the Cosmic Consciousness springs. Dr. Bucke further
reminds us that the expression "He saw the heavens rent asunder,"
describes well enough the oncoming of the Cosmic Consciousness,
which is instantaneous, sudden, and much as if a veil were with
one sharp jerk torn from the eyes of the mind, letting the sight
pierce through.

Describing the same oncoming of Cosmic Consciousness, St. John
of the Cross (John Yepes) says:

> It is the soul that is moved and awakened. It is as if God
> withdrew some of the many veils and coverings that are before it,
> so that it might see what He is.

He has been enquiring whether, in this seemingly miraculous
occurrence, it is God or the human soul that acts -- and this is
his conclusion.

So too, the sense of the words "Thou art my Beloved Son," agrees
perfectly with the message conveyed in all the cases. Walt
Whitman says, "I know that the Spirit of God is the Brother of my
own." Dante's words: "O Love, that governest the heavens, Who
with thy Light didst lift me," is a strictly parallel expression.
The apparently objective Voice is also a common phenomenon. It
was heard by St. Paul and by other spiritual Seers and
Initiates.

The Temptation in the Wilderness, which followed the Baptism of
Jesus, also brings out some of the criteria of His Mastership,
but there is no time to mention them here. Jesus quickly decided
that the higher powers of the Initiate must be used for the
benefit of the race and never exploited for the gratification of
the lower self.

Why is this element of self-discipline always observed in the
evolution of a Master of the race? It is because the moral
elevation, which is a part of Cosmic Consciousness, will not
permit any other decision. Were it not so, were the intellectual
illumination not accompanied by moral exaltation, these men would
undoubtedly be (as Dr. Bucke remarks) in effect so many demons
who would end by destroying the world!

The essence of this Temptation is the appeal of the old
self-conscious self to the new power to assist it in
accomplishing its old desires. The devil, therefore, is the
self-conscious or lower self. The Devil (Mara) appeared to
Gautama as well as to Jesus and urged him not to launch out on a
new path, but to keep to the old religious practices, to live
quietly and comfortably. "What dost thou want with exertion," he
said to him. Mara did not seek to allure Gautama with offers of
wealth and power, for these he had already possessed, and even
the self- conscious Gautama knew their futility. As already
intimated, every man who enters cosmic consciousness necessarily
passes through the same temptation.

As all the rest, Francis Bacon was tempted this way and, as
doubtless many others have fallen, he in a sense fell. He felt
in himself such enormous capacity that he imagined he could
absorb the wealth of both the cosmic sense and self-
consciousness -- both heaven and earth. Later he bitterly
repented his greed. He acknowledges the gift (from God) of the
Divine faculty -- "the gracious talent" -- which he says he
"neither hoarded up unused, nor did he employ it to the best
advantage, as he should have done, but misspent it in things for
which (he) was least fit."

THE POWERS INNATE IN MAN

One of the advertised objects of the Theosophical Society is "to
investigate the powers innate in man." I submit that a careful
study of the life and works of Jesus the Christ will furnish
grounds for the belief that we are all living on a plane of
thought and achievement much lower than that which our true
nature implies.

After some years spent in studying and teaching the life of Jesus
the Christ, I am convinced that he has set before us, in his life
and teachings, the possibility of a superlative life far
transcending that ordinarily reached by any one of us. Allowing
for all possible exaggerations and misquotations from original
and authentic sources, it seems clear to me that Jesus the Christ
demonstrated -- in Himself and (to some degree) through his inner
circle of disciples -- a power and lordship over the enemies of
the race -- Sin, Disease, and Death -- transcending that of any
other member of the race.

As we think here of His Mastership, let us not belittle our own
potential mastership. His mastership was largely manifested to
evoke that mastership which lies latent in each one of us. He
told his followers very clearly:

> The works that I do shall ye do also, and greater works than
> these shall ye do because I go to the Father.
>
> -- John 14:12

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THE ORIGIN OF FICTION, Part I

By Kenneth Morris

[From THE THEOSOPHICAL FORUM, February 1951, pages 92-103.]

How many hundreds of thousands of novels do people publish every
year? When published, what good purpose do the novels serve? They
are mostly a drug for the mind. Perhaps, they might be a means
of keeping people from the dreadful necessity of thinking, of
facing themselves, of discovering or trying to discover the
meaning of life. Yet, the art of fiction had its origin in
things altogether holy. Were there no inner truth about the
universe, novel writing would have had a different beginning.
Let us see what the beginnings of fiction really were.

We are here today in Wales. Go back some two or three thousand
years. You will say, "Was Wales or northern Europe civilized
then?" The answer is, "Yes, though their civilization was unlike
ours. It was still more unlike the condition of the peoples we
call savages today." We need not go into what their civilization
was like. All that concerns us was their religion.

There were no churches and chapels in those days. It was the
time "cyn cred," before the creed, before the coming of
Christianity. We now call their religion Druidism. We do not
know what they would have called it. They divided it into two
parts, an Outer and an Inner. The Outer they might have called
"Religion." The Inner, they would call by some term as the
"Secret Wisdom."

The Outer was what everybody believed in. It consisted of tales
about the Gods, and festivals in which they commemorated the
doings of the Gods. There would have been Gods of almost
everything: the mighty Mother, Nature; the Sun God; the
Moon-Goddess; Gods of air, fire, and water; Gods of the trees, of
war, of trade, of eloquence, color, poetry, Gods of wisdom, and
so forth. Several times in the year, there would be festivals in
honor of these Gods. Everyone understood these Gods to be
interested in the humanity they protected.

By holding these festivals in their honor, humanity drew near to
them and shared in their life. If you sinned, you offended
against the Laws of the Universe, of which these Gods were the
agents and guardians. The consequence would be that the Gods of
Agriculture would not cooperate with you to make your harvests
good, or the God of War would not be on your side in battle, or
the Rain-God would not send rain.

There was more to religion than that. There were people who knew
the real secrets of life and the universe. These people were the
Druids. They were the priests of those times. They had gone
through long and severe training in order to acquire the Secret
Wisdom. They knew that there was a path to the heart of the
Universe, which men might travel. When the desire or aspiration
came to anyone to travel that path and learn the Inner Wisdom, he
knew what steps to take.

The multitude would go through life content with the exoteric or
outer religion. They did their duty more or less by the Gods and
by their fellow man. Then as now, nine out of ten found the
outer life enough to content them and did not trouble themselves
about the Secrets of Wisdom. A certain number, then as now, were
not content just to be born, married, beget children, and die.
They wanted to KNOW. What did these aspiring souls do?

They went to the Druids, and said, "I want to know. Teach me!"

The Druids answered, "Why do you want to know?"

Perhaps the answer to that was, "That I may be great and
powerful, and rule over my fellow man."

To that, the Druid said, "Go away. You are not ready for the
Secret Wisdom."

Perhaps the aspirant said honestly, "I want to know in order that
I may do good in the world, greater good than I can do without
the knowledge of the Secret Wisdom. I want to know that I may
serve my fellow men."

To that the Druid would answer, "Well, I will take you as my
disciple. How much you can learn, or whether you can learn at
all, depends entirely on yourself. It depends on your sincerity,
your devotion, your intelligence, and your readiness to give up
self, to forget yourself, and to live in that Greater Self which
is love for humanity."

Then began a course of long discipline designed to kill the sense
of self in the aspirant. If any man injured him, he had to
forgive the injury at once and wholeheartedly. He had to return
good for evil and love for hatred. When self was dead in him,
then he began to learn the secrets.

He pledged himself to keep what he learned secret, for knowledge
is power. He would not reveal this Greater Knowledge to those
who had not undergone the discipline that frees a man from the
shackles of self. To do so would put power into the hands of
those who might use it for self-advantage, to the detriment of
others.

The disciple passed through various Initiations, each of which
revealed to him secrets of wisdom, making him a greater man. The
penalty he would have to pay for revealing any of the knowledge
he had won, would be the loss of that knowledge. The Druids did
not impose this penalty. The penalty came from a law innate in
things, a law innate in the fabric of the universe.

While the Druids were the custodians of the Secret Wisdom, they
were also the ones who presided over the religious life of the
people. They arranged and ordered those popular festivals in
honor of the Gods. They had charge of the exoteric religion as
well as of the Inner Wisdom.

The Druids made sure that people never forgot there was a Secret
Wisdom. They kept alive the knowledge that there was a path to
the heart of the Universe, which those might travel upon who
would. When they initiated a candidate, they taught him to keep
inviolable secrecy, yet to keep in public awareness that there
were secrets that some might learn.

To do this, they used stories of the Gods that were half the
material of the exoteric religion. What is the basis of a story?
What are the elements we must have? First is a hero about whom we
wrote the story. Then there is a beginning. The hero has a task
before him, with adventures to undergo. Then there is the
ending, where he attains something. That is the basic form. The
hero is the candidate for Initiation, the man who sets out to
become a God. He has adventures, which means that he undergoes
the discipline and trials that lead to and constitute his
Initiation. Then he attains his goal, which stands for wisdom,
Godhood. He becomes an Initiate, an Adept.

This is the subject of ancient fiction. It is the subject that
the ancients considered the most important in the world. They
told innumerable tales, but they always meant this subject. The
hero is never a character study, because he is not a man. He is
one of the principles in the constitution of every man. The
other characters in the story are not other human beings, other
individuals that he meets in daily life. They are other
principles found in the constitution of every man. He has not to
fight and overcome forces that are outside of his own being. The
goal he wins -- bride, kingdom, or what not -- is not external.
In every case, it is the divinity within him.

What is true of ancient Wales is equally true of most parts of
Europe, Asia, North Africa, and even the Americas. There were
those among the Initiates of the Druidic Schools whose business
it was to tell stories. In this part of the world, people called
them the Bards. This word has come now, except in Wales, to mean
poets. That is only a secondary meaning. Bard really means
teacher, in the sense of Teacher of Wisdom. Because they told
their stories mostly in verse, the name of Bard came to mean
poet.

The Bards filled a need of society as it then existed. There
were long winter evenings in which the tribesmen gathered in the
houses of the kings and chieftains with which the country was
plentifully sprinkled. The women would sew, weave, and spin.
The men would work on their nets and weapons. There would be
music, harping, and song. The Bard presently arrived at the
door. They received him with high honor.

In the course of the evening, he would tell a story, either
altogether in verse, or with poems occurring here and there in
it. He would take care that in the telling hints be dropped as
to its meaning. This was so that if there were anyone in the
hall who was inwardly ready to take the first steps towards
Initiation, the Bard would remind him of the possibility of
taking such steps. He would have a care too that something
should remain in the minds of all. What was that? It was a
feeling that ordinary outer life is not the only thing, is not
the great and important thing.

I will not go at length into the grand old stories that have come
down to us from those ancient Bards. We can read them in Lady
Charlotte Guest's translation, the MABINOGION. I take an example
from the great Welsh Initiation story called HANES TALIESIN, the
HISTORY OF TALIESIN. Taliesin may have lived in the sixth
century. Seventy-seven poems attributed to him come down to us.
Many are bristling with the teachings of the Ancient Wisdom. He
is the great type of Bard Initiate in Welsh literature.

The story is that Ceridwen, the Mighty Mother, the Goddess of
Nature, had a son who was the ugliest man in the world. To make
up for his ugliness, she determined to make him also the wisest.
She brewed a decoction in her cauldron on the hills of
Cardiganshire, seeking to result in three drops of wisdom. She
set a dwarf named Little Gwion to stir this while she gathered
herbs for it on the Hills.

As Little Gwion stirred, the brew boiled over, three drops
falling on his finger and scalding him. He put the finger in his
mouth to ease the pain. He instantly became aware of all things,
and first of all that he must flee from Ceridwen. The drops of
wisdom being out of the cauldron, the strength of the poison that
remained broke the vessel, and the poison flowed away down to the
sea.

We know that as the Cauldron of Reincarnation, Pair Dadeni. The
decoction brewing in it is the experience we get in our
incarnations here in the world, of which the result is the Three
Drops of Wisdom, the Initiation that makes men Gods, masters of
their destiny. Ceridwen, Mother Nature, brews the cauldron.
That is, men incarnate in this world, the realm of Mother Nature.
The moment men have tasted the drops of wisdom, the first
knowledge that comes to them is that they have to beware of
Nature, of lower human nature, which they have to conquer before
becoming immortal.

Gwion Bach fled from Ceridwen. He fled from and evaded the lower
nature. He became a hare, and she pursued him as a greyhound.
He became a trout in the stream, and she pursued him as an otter.
He became a bird in the air, and she pursued him as a hawk. When
she stooped over him to kill, he became a grain of wheat falling
onto a heap of grain in a farmyard. She became an old black hen
with a tuft of white feathers on her head, and gobbled him up.
In due course, he was born as her child. He was a child so
beautiful and so radiant of brow that she had not the heart to
destroy him. People called him Taliesin, radiant forehead. He
became the greatest of the Bards of Wales.

The story is far too deep, far too full of profound symbolism, to
attempt to explain it in detail. It tells the one great story
which the ancient stories set out to tell. They called
Initiation the second birth, as Jesus told his disciples that
they must be born again. In the first birth in any life, we are
born human. In this second birth, we are born divine, Gods, no
longer merely men. Gwion Bach is not Jack Jenkins or Tommy Smith
with their traits, characteristics, and tricks of personality.
The story does not describe his character. He is simply the
daily self of each one of us, the human self. He is a dwarf
because that daily human self is small, petty, and circumscribed.

Having gone through the trials and agonies of Initiation, he is
born again as Taliesin, the God-self of each of us, the inspired
Bard, the liberator of humanity. The story goes on to tell how
Elphin, the unluckiest man in the world, found the child
Taliesin. It tells how Elphin was captive in chains in the power
of a wicked king, and how Taliesin came into that king's hall,
and with his song set Elphin free.

------------------------------------------------------------------
THE ROAD OF INGARDI

By Victor Endersby

[CHRONICLES ON THE PATH, Part IX. This 18-part series appeared
in THEOSOPHICAL NOTES from September 1951 through November 1954.]

Ingardi the King, by restless energy and endless craft, extended
his lands and increased his renown all the days of his life. The
smoke of burning houses rose in his wake. This, Ingardi
regretted, but felt the end good. The survivors would live under
the rule of Ingardi the Just, to their betterment. Jealous was
Ingardi of his justice, suffering none to claim so loyal a
service to the people.

Ingardi made contact with the Wisdom, and for a space, until
drawn away by new cares of state, became a learner. Later, the
Wisdom fell upon evil times. Ingardi, remembering with gratitude
the wider horizon once glimpsed, stood against the priests at the
risk of his throne, thus securing the lives of the Companions and
the continuance of the work.

In the years of waning forces, Ingardi, sadly weighing all things
in a new balance, made a vow. Following the expiration of
breath, the vow was renewed in the Buddhi and thus carried to new
lives.

First causes produced first effects. Woeful was the next birth
of Ingardi. He lived in the hut of a cowherd. Abused by people
he had former oppressed, they had now become his parents. He was
soul-defiled by the evil speech of ancient subjects whose morals
had been neglected in the pursuit of power. The swinging blade
of the olden time returned as flying hooves, hooked horns, teeth
of horses, the scythe blade, the ploughshare, and the knives and
clubs of feuding neighbors. Clumsy was Ingardi born. By
maturity, he was twisted and scarred from head to foot,
remembering a thousand deaths, but no surcease of pain.

Through that lowly place came on occasion royal hunting parties.
Many fair faces and fine silks aroused in Ingardi the desires of
old, besetting him with nightmares of loss and longing. For
Ingardi, the cowherd was still stiff with pride and fierce with
passion.

In a single life, Ingardi was purged, having vast capacity for
woe, dying thankful to be done with living. In his next life, he
sought self-elevation, entered the schools, and in time regained
among men much of the ancient homage. The way being cleared, the
power of the vow manifested. Ingardi once more met with the
Wisdom.

Confused was the meeting, for the preceptor was Fidac, the ill
learned, of speech unlettered and manner lacking courtesy.
Listening to the word and not the speaker, heeding the thought
and not the word thereof, Ingardi recognized truth. Yet he
remained dubious such a vehicle should represent that noble
knowledge. He knew not that the history of the Wisdom in THAT
place was of persecution and poverty, from which the polished
flee, while the rude stand fast.

Skimming the flavor of Fidac from the surface of the cup, Ingardi
drank knowledge, albeit with a mingling of bitterness. He
offered service, and was accepted by Fidac without thanks or
ceremony and with an admonition to diligence. Choking this down,
Ingardi served for many years on a rough road. Fidac, absorbed
in the work, ruthless to himself, ruthless to others, quick to
blame, seldom praising, was a comfortless companion on the Way.
Often rasped by the rough tongue of Fidac, often seeing men of
substance turn away from inept speech with tolerant smiles, never
to return, Ingardi endured unto one day of heavy labor and hard
circumstance. Then Fidac spoke sharply to him, pointing out that
by untimely speech he had wrought confusion in the minds of
certain learners.

Ingardi said naught, seeing at once that it was true. Unable to
endure the face of Fidac for a time, he passed away silently into
the solitudes. There, for it was the seventeenth day of the
eleventh month, every bruise put on him by Fidac over the years
throbbed afresh. Thus, he endured the unendurable, for he saw
that his part was the path of Fidac forevermore, and it seemed
that Fidac would never change. For many days and nights, the
pride within him howled its hurt and desolation to the silent
pines and indifferent stars.

All things were ending. A clear, frozen voidness of feeling
arrived through much suffering. In this, the Soul of Ingardi
stood aside from the flesh, viewing Ingardi and Fidac alike
without favor. It was then seen that Fidac and Ingardi were the
two pillars to a strong gate of enlightenment. The common touch
of Fidac drew the humble and lowly. The knowledge of Ingardi
hinted to the erudite the heights that lay beyond. Ingardi was a
call to the lowly to seek a higher path of understanding. Fidac,
a warning to the well favored that loyalty and strength are in
low places as in high. Both pillars needed straightening. Many
waited without portal, unto the day that the pillars should be
capped with the beam of mutual understanding.

Then Ingardi also saw that the lash of Fidac, laid upon the
ancient royal pride, had saved him the delay of yet other lives.
Thus, the heart of Ingardi entered into peace. So died Ingardi
the King. So was born Ingardi the Companion.

------------------------------------------------------------------
THE THEOSOPHY OF GEORGE RUSSELL (AE)

By H.F. Norman

[From THE THEOSOPHICAL FORUM, February 1936, pages 92-99.]

How can Theosophy be other than one and single? Can it mean one
thing for Boehme and another for Paracelsus?

It may be contended that human capacity being limited relatively
to ideas, there must be as many Theosophies as Theosophists. It
may be retorted that divine wisdom must be fundamentally one. I
shall contest neither thesis. I would neither entangle my pen in
those intellectual thickets through which the heterodox may seek
an escape from heresy-hunters nor ply it to tighten the knots of
some straitlaced orthodoxy. I aim merely at some partial
revelation based on an intimate knowledge extending beyond four
decades of the life and ideas of a friend, one to whom the debt
of his generation is greater than it knows and who constantly
declared himself the debtor of early inspirations that he knew
and named as Theosophy.

Two streams of influence flowed from George Russell that watered
the mental and spiritual soil of his time and environment. He
was in love with brotherhood. He was perhaps equally enamored of
liberty. Generally commingling, though the currents of each
could be severally traced, they formed his river of life.

Russell was nourished upon the scriptures of the world and their
great interpreters of ancient times: Plato, Plotinus, Patanjali,
Lao-Tze, the Evangelists, Paul, and of later date Blake, and
amongst his own contemporaries Blavatsky, Judge, and 'Jasper
Niemand.' He passed on to his associates the inspirations he had
imbibed. He wrought a rich tapestry of being which transferred
it pictorially from his own vision to the mind-stuff of his
contemporaries.

The transfer was by virtue of his gay and unpretending spirit,
dear to his intimates and sensed by all who knew him. This went
beyond the substance of his incommensurable conversation, the
rhythm, form, or content of his writing, and the ennobling
texture of his own life. It is fitting, therefore, to inquire
into these achieved consummations of ideal and reality, the
inspirations that enriched him, the response they evoked within
him, and their influence on others.

The psychical elements, which make one a poet or a seer, are his
own secret, if indeed even he knows them. There may be some
scarcely decipherable prescription for it. The mixture may
contain so much sensibility, so much courage, so much integrity,
so much love, and add life in sufficient quantity. The
quantities are never clearly written.

In George Russell -- to change the metaphor - when we find the
commingling of two loves in a common flame, the love of
brotherhood and the love of freedom, we cannot say that either
was the aboriginal fire, kindled first, or if one was the actual
flame and the other the warmth it shed. The greater love, though
we must think of both as one, the love of universal brotherhood,
he would without hesitation have traced to an archaic source.

His earliest thinking concerned the ARCHAEUS or World Soul, on
which he brooded continually. It was "one thing in all things"
though multiple in manifestation. It is made concrete in
meditation as stones, animals, men, and gods. He fastened his
mind and fashioned his will towards the evolution of spirituality
within him and without him.

This spirit of the universe did not relate itself to humanity
alone. Descending into the soil, it spoke in the green beings
that flower upon it no less than in the beast springing out of
it, the bird in the treetop, and the light in the sky. Here was
spiritual Nature, "the Mighty Mother," inspiring love for the
lovely things she made.

The ETHOS of this brotherhood was thus no less an AISTHETIKON,
visionary, beautiful. In this constantly returning mood, AE felt
moved towards and for blossoming things in their lowly setting of
earth. Others may feel for squirrel or deer. He showed more
concern for the voices of the plants than with the songs of
birds. To his sensitive inner ear, primrose or anemone raised
its meek plaint when he plucked it. The texture of soil or stone
became fuel for his imagination as he handled it. He infected
his companions with those experiences until we asked ourselves:
is there indeed a true clairaudience in these heard protestations
of the blossoming weeds, or is all this but willful fantasy?

To companions training their will like him upon the YOGA
APHORISMS of Patanjali, such flower-voices became the attainment
of that delicate intuition they sought as the crown of a
discipline of concentration. "He hears the music of the opening
buds and knoweth what is passing in the mind of the ant."

For him, as devotee of Nature, the saying goes: "As below, so
above!" Kinship with the One Life, which he drank at Oriental
fountains, extended beyond the confederacies of Earth and the
waking world, through the mid-world of dream in which he was so
much at home, into the realm of deep sleep to the demigods and
other denizens of vision, beings of romance to others, of a
deeper reality to him.

"Isn't he a bit of a humbug," said one intelligent and friendly
critic. "He and his fairies?" No! There was no make-believe on
his plane of vision, no puckishness in his world of fairy. If in
these phases of the life of the psyche there was withdrawal from
the light of common day, the munificent universality of
comradeship re-earthed him swiftly in the presence of those who
studied with him the Theosophical literature reminding him that
"the universe exists for purposes of soul."

Yet, not only those whose characters were storm-proof experienced
the pleasures of his companionship. I know not how many were led
-- though I could name several -- to seeking truth or to right
living because his moral generosity rescued them from a life of
mere excitement and sensation, men whose sensitive but infirm
wills he drew to Theosophical study and exercise.

As he drew his cosmogony from THE SECRET DOCTRINE and his
psychology from kindred sources, he drew his individual ethics
mainly from Judge, from LETTERS THAT HAVE HELPED ME, still more
from the redaction of THE BHAGAVAD GITA, and most of all from a
vivid, pervasive, albeit externally slender, personal contact.
The loss by death of that spiritual chieftainship did not lessen
AE's reliance on the faiths in which it was rooted. I believe he
would wish to have that asserted.

Of those faiths, the most comprehensive was also the most
poignant. "Cast no one out of your heart." This the reader
should understand was no mere sentimental emotion. Brotherhood
was accepted in a spirit of realism as "a fact in Nature." It
followed that many who stumbled by the wayside found in George
Russell a potent helper.

At Russell's funeral, one mourner was questioned by a bystander
at a most lavish gift of flowers being carried to his coffin.
The mourner had experienced some untoward act long ago that
brought suffering in its train. Facing scorn or aversion from
others, he found compassionate aid from Russell. The mourner
answered with unemotional cogency, "I would have died for him."

Russell's beneficences were not isolated to occasional cases of
distress. They were habitual. They were imparted in that spirit
in which Madame Blavatsky had written.

> Whoever feels his interests are one with those poorer or less
> fortunate than himself ... who is ready to hold out a helping
> hand to the suffering is a Theosophist by birth and right.

Public causes, which were external activities in the limelight
for others who espoused them, were for George Russell lit up by
an illumination from within. These shined as through the stained
glass windows of a richly colored soul. He held claims for labor
to be fundamentally just. These claims ceased for him to belong
to polemical politics. They became a challenge from karma
causing him to trample on a natural shyness, mount the rostrum,
and rain down upon a mass meeting the fire of a burning
eloquence.

A like impartation of moral beauty overflowed from the private
heart into the commonwealth when he placed his great gifts at the
service of the cooperative movement. Horace Plunkett had felt
that that movement of which he was the mind and will needed a
soul. The poet W.B. Yeats, a friend of both, brought them
together and Russell became the inspirer of Irish cooperation,
whose reverberations flowed out into Europe, Asia, the United
States, and Africa.

Brotherhood in its widest scope was the sun in Russell's horizon.
Freedom lit the campfires on his advancing path as he battled for
justice, illuminating the dark places in human life. This light
was perhaps less fixed than the other. Some felt its fervent
energy imparted less light than warmth. He saw that light as one
in kind with noble inspirations. Emerson's ideal of compensatory
justice was the righteousness of Hebrew seers and the equality of
Greek thinkers.

In his concept of freedom, he gave to others without reservation
the rights he felt he must claim for himself and for his view of
life. I was to learn this early in our contacts. Upon some
diversity of outlook on a minor point of belief he had written to
me, quoting Blake, "Your heaven doors are my hell gates." I was
aghast, remembering the caustic amenities with which John Wesley
had retorted upon Whitfield, "Your God is my devil." I had
misapprehended.

AE, painter as well as mystic, knew well that black and white are
not the sole pigments upon the palette of the universe. He was
asserting the freedom of souls to their own truth. He had
imbibed a modern statement of an old teaching, one to which he
made frequent reference in the words of Jasper Niemand, in "The
Vow of Poverty." She said, "Come, go, do, abstain; an equal right
is mine."

I learned later that another aphorism of Blake's was always in
his mind. "One law for the lion and the ox is oppression."
Therefore, a tolerance of the beliefs of others was not a gift to
be patronizingly bestowed. It was their right.

Obligations of belief may only be imposed upon the self by the
Self. Some may misapply this liberty of thought and action.
They may mistake for weakness of will a refusal to constrain
others towards one's own ethos or to requite evil with evil.
Well, karma will see to that. One must never question the motive
of another but only one's own. This, as I apprehend him, was
basic in George Russell. Those familiar with Judge's writings
will hear in it an echo of his voice. Those who knew Russell
will know it as woof in the texture of his being.

I would not overstate claims made on his behalf that he would
never have put forward for himself. The beacon-fires of freedom
may be more fitful in their windblown flame than the more
tranquil light cast by the sun of brotherhood. In lighting fires
of freedom, he was prompted by the same sense of human dignity
that inspired his early work for the Theosophical Society in
whose interests they were first lit.

That he did not continue in the Society, leaving it at about the
time he became absorbed in public work, is no doubt the reason
for a rumor I have heard. I challenge the rumor that he left
Theosophy. It would be impertinent to apologize for facts that
were exclusively his concern. It would be disingenuous, though,
in discussing his relation to the Theosophical Movement to ignore
them if, as I believe, a few brief sentences may help to
dissipate mistaken inferences.

He was devoted to the Theosophical Society of Madame Blavatsky's
founding and Judge's fosterage. He also had associations of
respect and affection for their Successor. His attachment to the
Society was strongly identified with a type of organization into
which all could enter who deeply cared for brotherhood, whether
they might call themselves freethinkers or mystics. He held the
Theosophical Society to be unique with universal brotherhood as
its single dogma, an open membership, a spiritual objective, and
a free platform.

I think that when Mrs. Tingley felt impelled to change its name
and alter some articles in the Constitution he was of opinion (as
was I) that membership must in practice become restricted to
those who accepted the principle of hierarchies. A more fully
organized, more carefully selective and restrictive governing
body was placed at the center of the society.

It seems to some that this caused responsibility to be
transferred from the regular members to a deeply indoctrinated
group, lessening the moral burdens borne by those furthest from
the center. To others it seemed that acquiescence in these
principles carried greater and not less responsibility for
activities or ideals emanating from the center, and whose inner
causes were not known. I think George Russell came to feel thus.

The Constitution has since been modified. The questions and
interpretations mooted here are not now matter for discussion. I
mention them because I realize that he himself had a feeling for
the hierarchical principle, which gave me ground for surprise at
his withdrawal from the new Constitution (shortly after my own).

I see in his bifurcation of outlook at this point the basis of
the fallacious supposition that he had shifted his spiritual
center of gravity. It is to that misconception that I demur. In
reconstituting the old Hermetic Society, out of which the first
Dublin Lodge of the Theosophical Society had evolved, he
reaffirmed his mystical outlook whilst offering a broad platform
to all truth-seekers.

The correspondence with Mrs. Tingley on points of difference
was, I am sure, marked by goodwill on his side. I know it was
marked with affection on hers. Though it marked a phase in
George Russell's activities, it did not mark a break with archaic
beliefs.

We have seen what those beliefs meant to him. They meant faith
in the oneness of life, its spiritual laws, brotherhood,
reincarnation, and karma. They also mean the corresponding
ideals inseparable from them, including compassion, justice, and
the evolution of the human soul. Their vitality and
continuousness were tested repeatedly.

In Dublin on White Lotus Day, 1933, he expressed to a gathering
to commemorate the life and work of Madame Blavatsky, the extent
of the debt to these incurred by the Irish Literary Movement of
the nineties.

In a letter I had from him in 1933 or 1934, he wrote that he
would like his Hermetic Group to join the Dublin Theosophical
Club. About the same time he expounded to me his idea in testing
out karma by living in London for a while without informing
people of his plans, and how there flowed to him naturally those
who belonged to him, mystics, poets, artists. This justified his
experiment.

He spoke to a friend in London once. The friend had launched
with him on one of those broad swift rivers of interchanging talk
that he loved, whose hurrying flow not even the traffic of Regent
St. could retard. He turned sharply to emphasize a point.
"Surely, surely," Russell said, "You don't imagine that you and I
have met for the first time in THIS life?"

So much for doctrines! We have seen that these were not for AE so
vital as the spirit in which they are applied. That old secret
to which he made perennial reference, that "what a man thinks,
that he is," lived within him less as conceptual thought than as
thinking actualized through the imagination and realized in deed
and spiritual achievement. Objectified as reality, ideals that
remain precepts to others became things, children of the soul,
for him.

There are ideologies of propaganda that shed a vague nimbus of
half-thinking around the twilight moods of the sectarian and the
partisan. They remain in the region of opinion even when they
have crystallized into formal dogma. These did not attract him.
He was not one to exercise intellectual muscles. He did not
train his mind as athletes train lungs and limbs. He did not
seek to seize by a strenuous effort of will the complicated
apprehensions of truth. Such training he reserved for the soul,
exalting wisdom above reason.

Because of this distinction, those of a different school did not
always realize that his mental attitude was one of scrupulous
integrity. This was always to life, not always to those facts
that the imagination has failed to inspire and illuminate.
Though he gave mental hospitality to many aspects of the
intellectual life, his own philosophy was of the inspiration and
required an aesthetic setting, as found in the classic scriptures
of the world or created in verse or prose. Great teaching always
made for itself great utterance, though it might be greatly
simple.

"Lordly" was the adjective oftenest on his lips when he spoke of
THE UPANISHADS or quoted from the SHEPHERD OF HERMAS or the
FOURTH GOSPEL, over a partial translation of which he and his
dear friend James Pryse worked together long ago. I believe that
the aesthetic test may have influenced him in his relation to
modern Theosophical literature and was perhaps an additional
reason why his contacts with mystical writings of a later date
than Judge's were not close.

To compensate for this, there was within him a growing
comprehension of the needs and, yes, of the importance of the
"souls of common men." Here no hyperaesthesia insulated him from
the call of humanity. He felt that the mystic is above all
things practical and so must deploy his spiritual energies upon
the field of human effort.

> There is no great and no small
> To the Soul that knoweth all.
> And where He cometh all things are
> And He cometh everywhere.

Russell was so preoccupied with public events as editor and
pamphleteer in his later years that except for the weekly
gatherings of his Hermetic Group, the meditations of earlier
decades filled a smaller part in the landscape of his life. It
was still with those who cared to ascend with him the peaks of
spiritual aspiration or revive the memories of spiritual
experience that he found his most satisfying companionships.

The last of the old Dublin Lodge Group to die was Dan Dunlop.
Russell felt acutely this severance. As these companionships
lessened, he renewed again the companionships of the soul, which
he had made for himself through his intimacy with the spiritual
classics. He came close again to some of the simple but subtle
utterances of Blake, of Lao-tse's TAO TEH KING, the grave beauty
of the Gospels, or the visions of the Apocalypse. What moved him
most of all, I think, was the dialogs of Krishna with Arjuna.
All these he found had wavelengths synchronous with winged
soaring words born in his own mind.

He applied his meditations and reveries to contemporary life,
translating them into picture and poetry. He addressed the hopes
and faiths of all men. He expressed high deeds and the tempering
of the soul to the fires of daily living. As to remote symbols
of a future golden age, he left that for the period of Devachanic
dreams.

More than any of his generation whom I have intimately known, he
matched vision to life. He was fundamentally poet and painter no
less than seer. His was, as perhaps it must happen with every
man, a Theosophy not of textbook, maxim, or precept, not even
primarily a body of cosmic doctrine, though all these were
influences. His was but a vision through the spiritualized
imagination of what life intends, reaches out to, and means us to
become.

------------------------------------------------------------------
INITIATION, Part II

By Osvald Siren

[From THE THEOSOPHICAL FORUM, January 1939, pages 14-21. This is
a condensed report of an address presented at the recent European
Convention.]

Initiation during life just as well as after death is a
gradual liberation or development by which the divine part of a
man is freed from his various vestures. This higher aspect of
man's soul is often spoken of as a Dionysian or a Dionysos, the
god who was torn into pieces and devoured by the Titans, the evil
passions of man, and then again pieced together by Apollo and
Athena, the divinities of light and wisdom.

Olympiodoros says also:

> We are bound in matter as Titans, but we rise from the dark mire
> as Bacchuses (or Dionysoses). Hence, we become more prophetic at
> death. Bacchus is the supervisory guardian of death, because he
> is likewise of everything pertaining to the Sacred Mysteries.

Says Socrates in PHAEDON:

> Virtues when separated from wisdom are not even a shadow play of
> themselves, but are in reality signs of a slavish disposition and
> have in them nothing healthy and true. That which is in reality
> true virtue is purification from everything of this kind.
> Temperance and justice and fortitude and wisdom itself are each a
> kind of purification.
>
> It would seem that those who instituted the Mysteries for us,
> were no triflers. They shadowed forth in veiled sayings the
> truth -- that whosoever cometh to the house of Hades uninitiated
> and unpurified shall lie in the mire, whereas he who cometh
> thither purified and perfected by initiation in the Mysteries
> shall dwell with the gods.
>
> Say they who speak concerning the Mysteries, "Many are the
> wand-bearers, few are the Bacchanals." These few in my opinion,
> are none other than they who have been true philosophers, and
> that I may be counted among their number I have left nothing
> undone that was within my power throughout all my life but in
> every way most zealously striven.

You probably all remember the various passages regarding the
Mysteries, which are found in the writings by G. de P., which
makes it superfluous to quote them here. He tells us how,
through initiation, man was made to recognize his essential
oneness with the Anima Mundi. Man gradually was made to realize
his position as a life-atom in the universal organism, in which
he, just like the atoms of our body, flows out and in by means of
a regular series of earth-lives during his sojourn in this
planetary round on the earth-globe.

You may not be as familiar with the ancient Indian teachings in
which the same fundamental truths are brought out, and many
wonderful things said about the passage of the human monad along
the magnetic highways of the universe during its postmortem
journey. I refer to the Upanishads, and will quote here a few
passages from the CHHANDOGYA-UPANISHAD:

> A wise man sees in Self, those that are alive, those that are
> dead; and gets what this world cannot give. An ignorant man
> treads on the ground, but does not know the gold that lies
> underneath. We pass into the Self during sleep, but do not know
> Him.
>
> Self stays in the heart; "heart," a word that seems to say, "Here
> it is." Who knows this, daily enjoys the Kingdom of Heaven.
>
> A wise man, leaving his body, joins that flame; is one with his
> own nature. That nature is Self, fearless immortal Spirit.

And then:

> As a long highway passes between two villages, one at either end,
> so the sun's rays pass between this world and the world beyond.
> They flow from the sun, enter into the arteries, flow back from
> the arteries, and enter into the sun.
>
> When a man is asleep, enjoying his sleep, he creates no dream;
> his soul sleeps in the arteries. No evil can touch him, for he
> is filled with light.
>
> When he is dying, those around him ask if he knows them; as long
> as the soul does not leave the body, he knows them. When the
> soul leaves the body ascending with the sun's rays, he meditates
> on Om and, with the speed of thought, goes to the sun. Sun is
> the Gate of Heaven, where the wise can pass.
>
> Here is my authority: There are a hundred and one arteries
> leading to the heart; one of them pierces the crown of the head.
> He who goes upwards through it, attains immortality. He who does
> not is born again.

And there is very much more of it, for instance in Book VIII of
the same Upanishad:

> In this body, in this town of Spirit, there is a little house
> shaped like a lotus, and in that house, there is a little space.
> One should know what is there.
>
> What is there? Why is it so important?
>
> There is as much in that little space within the heart, as there
> is in the whole world outside. Heaven and earth, fire, wind,
> sun, moon, lightning, stars -- whatever is and whatever is not,
> everything is there.

I leave these profound and beautiful words with you without
further comments because I think that such would only serve to
blur their spiritual beauty. Those who will penetrate further
into the ancient Aryan conception of the human soul in relation
to the universe and its peregrinations through life and death
will do well to study more attentively some of the Upanishads.

You have all heard that according to the tradition reported by
several Greek philosophers there were seven stages of initiation.
They marked a gradual growth of the inner faculties in man, or
the bringing forward into action and full consciousness the inner
god. G. de P. has pointed out that when the seventh or highest
degree was successfully taken it produced the sublime Revelation,
or vision of the inner god who is a ray of the divine.

In the seventh initiation, even the body of the initiated was
clothed with the sun. He reached the consummation of all that is
evolutionally possible to attain on this earth during the present
Round, and those few among men who have been successful in this
last degree have become mediators between ordinary human beings
and the Hierarchy of Light, and some of them have been respected
or worshiped as saviors, redeemers, or great spiritual leaders.

Such, in a very general way, were some of the traditions relating
to the ancient Mysteries. They are full of hints and hidden
meaning, but rather vague about the actual ceremonies or
knowledge imparted through these institutions.

Instead of dwelling on them more in detail, or quoting some
further remarks from the philosophers, I would like to point out
that one might also speak of "Initiation" from a more ordinary or
personal point of view.

It may be said that many individuals, who are striving to
manifest in their lives the spiritual inspiration of their inner
natures, pass through continuous initiations. These may not be
of a ceremonial kind, but they are nevertheless highly
significant, because they make the aspirant pass through real
experiences that affect his whole being. Through these
experiences, he acquires a deeper knowledge than is possible to
attain by ordinary intellectual study and speculation, something
that becomes a part of his inner self and makes him grasp and
actually become the things for which he is striving.

We heard the previous speaker telling us about the seven
PARAMITAS, the steps on the path of the aspirant who is striving
for initiation, each step being marked by a special kind of
virtue leading to added knowledge. The first step is, as you
heard, DANA, charity and love immortal. To this, G. de P. has
added the following words of explanation:

> Impersonal love is self-forgetfulness. Personal love is
> self-remembrance. Do what you can to benefit mankind and you
> will be spiritually and intellectually natural and strong, you
> will be respected, and above all, you will respect yourself.

The Buddhists of the Meditative School used to speak of a sudden
enlightenment, which is an initiation. They said that it comes
spontaneously when the mind opens to the silent music that
accompanies every movement of life -- a reverberation of the
universal mind. It may be called poetry, but to the students who
followed this path it was actual life and reality. It was indeed
another attempt to picture to the mind experiences that cannot be
fully expressed in words, though deeply realized in the silence.

Finally, let me remind you of the following words of Lao-tzu:

> It is the way of Heaven not to strive and yet it knows how to
> overcome. Not to speak, and yet it knows how to obtain a
> response. It calls not, and things come of themselves. It is
> slow to move, but excellent in its designs.

He who understands and practices this has certainly passed
through one of the initiations that mark the way of the disciple,
but we who do not know and who do not understand have to prepare
for the first step by life and study.

------------------------------------------------------------------
THE ASCENDING CYCLE

By George William Russell [1867-1935]

[From THE IRISH THEOSOPHIST, November 1893.]

The teaching of THE SECRET DOCTRINE divides the time during which
human evolution proceeds upon this globe into seven periods.
During the first three-and-a-half, the ethereal humanity who
appeared in the First Race gradually become material in form, and
the psychic spirituality of the inner man is transformed into
intellectuality. During the remaining three-and-a-half periods,
there is a gradual dematerialization of form. The inner man by
slow degrees rises from mere brain intellection to a more
perfected spiritual consciousness.

We are told that there are correspondences between the early and
later periods of evolution. The old conditions are repeated, but
upon higher planes. We achieve anew the old spirituality with
added wisdom and intellectual power. Looked at in this way, we
shall find that the Seventh Race corresponds to the First. The
Sixth corresponds to the Second. The Fifth Race (which is ours)
corresponds with the Third.

"We are now approaching a time," says THE SECRET DOCTRINE, "when
the pendulum of evolution will direct its swing decidedly upward,
bringing humanity back on a parallel line with the primitive
Third Root Race in spirituality." That is, there will exist on
the earth, about the close of the Fifth Race, conditions in some
way corresponding with those prevailing when the Third Race men
began their evolution. Though this period may be yet distant
hundreds of thousands of years, still it is of interest to
forecast that future as far as may be. The future is concealed
in the present, and is the outcome of forces working today. We
may find out from this inquiry the true nature of movements like
the Theosophical Society.

One of the most interesting passages in THE SECRET DOCTRINE is
that which describes the early Third Race. "It was not a Race,
this progeny. It was at first a wondrous Being, called the
'Initiator', and after him a group of semi-divine and semi-human
beings."

Without at all attempting to explain the real nature of this
mysterious Being or Race, we may assume that one of the things
hinted at is the consciousness of united being possessed by these
ancient Adepts. Walking abroad over the earth as instructors of
a less progressed humanity, their wisdom and power had a common
root. They taught truth from a heart-perception of life, ever
fresh and eternal, everywhere pervading nature and welling up in
them. This heart-perception is the consciousness of unity of
inner beings.

The pendulum of evolution, in its upward swing, will bring
humanity backwards on a parallel line with the primitive Third
Root Race. This should bring back something corresponding to the
primeval hierarchy of divine sages. We should see at the end of
the Kali Yuga a new brotherhood formed from those who have risen
out of material life and aims, who have conquered self, who have
been purified by suffering, who have acquired strength and
wisdom, and who have wakened up to the old magical perception of
their unity in true Being.

> At the end of the Kali, our present age, Vishnu, or the
> 'Everlasting King', will appear as Kalki, and establish
> righteousness upon earth. The minds of those who live at that
> time shall be awakened and become pellucid as crystal.
>
> -- THE SECRET DOCTRINE, II, 483

We pass beyond the turning point of evolution, where the delusion
of separateness is complete. We then move on to that future
awaiting us in infinite distances, when the Great Breath shall
cease its outward motion and we shall merge into the One.

On this uphill journey in groups and clusters, men will first
draw closer together, entering in spirit their own parent rays,
before being united in the source of all light and life. Such a
brotherhood of men and women we may expect will arise, conscious
in unity, thinking from one mind and acting from one soul.

Long before, signs herald all such great achievements of the
race. Those who study the lives of men may know these signs.
There is a gestation in the darkness of the womb before the
living being appears. Ideals first exist in thought, and from
thought, they are realized outwards into objective existence.

The Theosophical Society was started to form the nucleus of a
universal brotherhood of humanity, and its trend is towards this
ideal. May we not justifiably suppose that we are witnessing
today in this movement the birth of a new race corresponding to
the divine Initiators of the Third, a race that shall in its
inner life be truly a "Wondrous Being?"

I think we will perform our truest service to the Society by
regarding it in this way as an actual entity whose baby years and
mystical childhood we should foster. Many know it is possible by
certain methods to participate in the soul-life of a coworker,
and if it is possible to do this even momentarily with one
comrade, it is possible so to participate in the vaster life of
great movements.

There will come a time to all who have devoted themselves to this
ideal, as H.P. Blavatsky and some others have done. There will
come a time when they will enter into the inner life of this
great Being, and share the hopes, the aspirations, the heroism,
and the failures which must be brought about when so many men and
women are working together. To achieve this, we should
continually keep in mind this sense of unity.

Striving also to rise in meditation until we sense in the
vastness the beating of these innumerable hearts glowing with
heroic purpose, we should try to humanize our mysticism. "We can
only reach the Universal Mind through the minds of humanity." We
can penetrate into their minds by continual concentration,
endeavoring to realize their thoughts and feelings, until we
carry always about with us in imagination, as Walt Whitman,
"those delicious burdens -- men and women."

------------------------------------------------------------------
FRATERNIZATION AND NETWORKING: YESTERDAY AND TODAY, Part I

By W. Emmett Small

[From THE ECLECTIC THEOSOPHIST, January 1985, pages 1-5.]

As we look back on the days of 1984 and scan the theosophical
horizons around the world, two points clearly stand out as
memorable. First is the emphasis on what today we speak of as
networking. It is what of old we called fraternization, or just
plain Brotherhood IN ACTU. Second is the sweeping momentum
towards a refocusing on the original teachings of Theosophy.
This is accentuated by increased study of HPB's THE SECRET
DOCTRINE. This is a surging power. It is as though in a certain
sense HPB were here herself, or rather that dynamic Force which
worked through her. It is felt, appreciated, and flowing through
the various energetic centers of Theosophy around the world.
These are not intended as mere words but as fact, and I believe
recognized by more than just a few.

Highlighted in the networking area was the Conference convened at
Krotona, Ojai, California, on January 28-29, 1984, called by the
Southern California Federation of the Theosophical Society
(Adyar) and ably chaired by its President Jerry J. Ekins.
Speakers were from the Adyar Theosophical Society, the United
Lodge of Theosophists, the Canadian Theosophical Society, the
Pasadena Theosophical Society, and Point Loma Publications. Six
months later, July 21-22, in San Diego, California, the first
International Symposium on HPB's work THE SECRET DOCTRINE was
held. Another outstanding success, with 17 papers and
representatives from four countries (see our report in the
September 1984 ECLECTIC THEOSOPHIST). These were but two events
highlighting theosophical activity in 1984. Other Conferences,
Conventions, etc., were held in different countries: Arnhem,
Holland; Tekels Park, England; Adelaide Hills, South Australia;
and in Canada and the United States. Sound articles on basic
Theosophy were published, study courses conducted, lectures
given. The vibrant feel of dedicated work was encouraging
because it seemed balanced, wise, and steady in effort and
direction.

In these opening days of a new year, it seems opportune to talk a
little about the networking idea and opportune to review,
especially for those younger in years than some participants in
the historic past, some aspects that should not be forgotten.
Perhaps from this backward look we may all learn something
applicable to a wise going forward today.

There is no need to linger on a description of the state of
inter-theosophical relations in 1929 between the official
Societies calling themselves theosophical. The Berlin Walls were
up. There was not only little communication but there was in
some instances an aggravating visible hostility that had been
alive for several decades. Into this maelstrom of confusing
elements Dr. G. de Purucker strode, and in February of 1930
issued his declaration and policy of Fraternization among all
Theosophists of whatever Society. Break down the barriers
separating them; speak to each other; invite each other to attend
meetings and to share the public platform. The response was
immediate and enthusiastic from many, but not from all. There
were critics. There was misunderstanding. There were 'cloudy
areas' as to how any eventual united theosophical organization
could function. The seed had been sown. Never again in
theosophical ranks worldwide would it be quite the same. Through
successive years after 1930, many harmonious inter-theosophical
meetings were held, especially in the United States with
cooperation from members in the Canadian Theosophical Society.
With the death of G. de P. (and after 3 years of Cabinet regime
in the Theosophical Society of Point Loma-Covina) the initial
strong effort waned, though among individuals it never died.
(Researchers in theosophical history could well find a rich field
to bore into on this one aspect of history. They would
necessarily refer to the theosophical journals of the day,
particularly THE THEOSOPHICAL FORUM issued from Point Loma, THE
AMERICAN THEOSOPHIST, from Olcott, Wheaton, Illinois, THE
THEOSOPHIST, from Adyar, India; as well as to available archival
records and correspondence.) The paragraphs to follow cannot give
a complete picture of the whole scenario, but may recapture for
the student a few 'moments' from the past.

In 1930 there were said, by an official count, to be 22
Theosophical organizations. Many of their official publications
in that year carried feature articles about Dr. de Purucker's
plan for Theosophical unification and cooperation, as well as
announcing the celebration of a Pan-Theosophical Congress at
Point Loma on August 12, 1931 to commemorate the 100th
anniversary of H.P. Blavatsky's birth.

Point Loma National Sections and Lodges, naturally, responded
with alacrity. More dramatic was the broad worldwide response
from the Adyar Society and lodges, from officials of the
Theosophical Society in France, Germany, Holland, Hungary,
Finland, Latvia, Yugoslavia, Hawaii, Canada, Cuba, Costa Rica,
Ceylon, etc. The General Secretary of the Theosophical Society
in Holland wrote:

> Everyone is grateful to Dr. de Purucker for the proposals to
> cooperate... We were pleased to be able to greet in our camp the
> President of the Theosophical Society (Point Loma), Dutch
> Section, Mr. A. Goud of Utrecht, together with some members. I
> had sent an invitation. I was convinced that personal contact
> and promoting mutual confidence and understanding are the best
> means to reach the cooperation hoped for and desired by all. May
> this be the precursor of many united meetings.

On October 19 of that year, Point Loma received a cablegram from
Stockholm, Sweden:

> Representative Theosophists of both Societies assembled in the
> spirit of goodwill and harmony sending you heartfelt and
> reverential greetings.
>
> -- Stockholm Lodges of Adyar and Point Loma

From the then Independent Theosophical Society of Australia,
Sydney, Australia, there came official communication under
September 10, 1930, from its General Secretary, John S. Greig,
addressed to the Secretary General of the Theosophical Society
(Point Loma):

> Our cordial greetings and sincere good wishes for a successful
> culmination of the work that Dr. de Purucker is at present
> engaged in, viz. a union of the scattered sections of the
> Theosophical Movement throughout the world. The Theosophy of
> this Society is purely that of H.P. Blavatsky and her Teachers
> and we are willing at all times to cooperate cordially in
> advancing that message. We view with great interest your plan to
> hold a Theosophical Congress next year. We will try to send
> representatives to that meeting should such eventuate. Dr. de
> Purucker's conception of printing a centenary edition of all that
> our Great Founder has ever written appeals greatly to the members
> of my Executive... Our Sydney Lodge last week invited your local
> representative, Mr. T.W. Willams, to address the members. A
> very happy meeting resulted and we hope it will be the forerunner
> of many...

From Canada came spontaneous expressions of goodwill from Mr.
A.E.S. Smythe, General Secretary. In the October issue of THE
CANADIAN THEOSOPHIST, William C. Clark, then an ardent "Back to
Blavatsky" Movement member, wrote in witty and in part satirical
tone:

> Of these efforts to knit up the ravel'd sleeve of the
> Theosophical jacket by far the liveliest, most efficient, and
> light-hearted is that incubated at Point Loma, California. The
> Point Loma Scheme is furthered by Dr. Gottfried de Purucker,
> whom was chosen by the late Katherine Tingley to be her
> successor. Dr. de Purucker joined Mrs. Tingley's Society when
> he was quite a young man and remained very closely associated
> with that remarkable lady until her death over a year ago. He is
> now in sole charge of the Point Loma Society, not only by Mrs.
> Tingley's express wish, but also it would seem, with the
> unanimous consent of all the other officials connected with that
> body.

Dr. de Purucker actually joined under Judge in 1894. Speaking
of "the Point Loma scheme for worldwide Theosophical unity," he
writes:

> The conception is grandiose and daring, conceived quite in the
> grand manner. The friction, the hostility, the endless
> misunderstandings which exist and, alas, always have existed
> amongst the various Theosophical bodies are to cease, and with
> them go the enormous wastage of energy, the needless and wasteful
> duplication of effort, the barren disputation, and above all the
> numerous and bitter rivalries over matters of jurisdiction and
> authority. All Theosophists the world over will cooperate in
> fraternal union and brotherly love, and there shall be one fold
> and one Shepherd. Thus by a masterstroke of creative ability Dr.
> de Purucker has settled a hitherto insoluble problem. It is a
> stroke of genius that makes us wonder why none had thought of it
> before.

------------------------------------------------------------------
IS THERE A SPIRITUAL SCIENCE?, Part II

By Boris de Zirkoff

[From a tape recording entitled "Are the Teachings Scientific? Is
There A Spiritual Science?" made of a private class held on April
13, 1955.]

> There is kindness and unkindness. An act may appear unkind when
> it is not. No matter what they do, people think they are right.
> They have thought it out and can justify it. Even a criminal
> will justify his acts. The most horrible criminal has a
> justification, which you can learn if you really talk to them.
> They may not like policemen. Perhaps their mother was unkind to
> them. Whatever the reason, they justify their actions. It may
> seem unkind to the victim, but the other is not trying to be
> unkind. They do something they must. The observer interprets it
> as unkind, rather than something the person would ordinarily do.
> It is a matter of understanding their motives. The
> interpretation also depends upon society. An act might be nice
> in one society and wrong in another.

We have seen terrible things on national and international scale
as well as on an individual scale. Some ascribe evil motives to
those whom have done the evil. This is rare. Few do wrong
because they like to. Few deliberately harm others. Mostly,
evil comes from virtues having turned into vices. The idea of
salvation drove the Roman Catholic Inquisition. Its supporters
twisted a virtue into a vice. They did it in a peculiar,
psycho-mental way in the name of Jesus, the Holy Virgin Mary, and
the saints. They did not do it with the idea, "Let us hurt as
many people as possible." They tangled up the Inquisition with a
twisted, inside out idea of salvation. A virtue had become a
vice.

Twisting the virtue of love for children, many parents do the
most impossible things, thinking they are right. They would be
monsters if they had deliberately hurt their children. They act
out of love, a love so inside out that has become a vice. They
do things that set back their children, which enslave them, which
shackle them with superstition, and sometimes turn them against
the parents. Even so, these are not the results of evil motives.

We think of Adolph Hitler as a monster. Future historians will
think otherwise. If we lived in Napoleon’s time, we might
consider him terrible. Hitler and Napoleon tried to do
impossible things. Lesser individuals surrounded them. They did
not entirely intend the evil that followed. We have little
versions of these monsters in every town, sometimes even in our
own family.

Think this out carefully. Most evil is from mistaken virtue, and
not from evil intentions. It involves things that people are
convinced are right. Their minds and emotional selves
crystallize around a self-made pattern. Come hell or high water,
they say, "That is the thing that is right!" They will make it
happen, irrespective of anything else.

Look at the theosophical organizations. Convinced that they are
doing the right thing, that they are doing what is best for the
Movement, so-called theosophists have done vile and inhuman
actions. Even so, there is no monster in the Theosophical
Movement to come and say, "I will do what is most hurtful to all!
I will do the vilest, ugliest, and nastiest thing imaginable!" I
do not know such a person.

Theosophical organizations have done the most extraordinary
things to each other. Groups have done things with the desire
that purity, honesty, and the safety of the Movement would
prevail against others trying to do wrong. Both sides were
right. They could not get away from their self-made patterns.
The self-made emotional and mental patterns prevailed over
brotherly love.

If this is possible in the Theosophical Movement, it is ten times
more likely in religious, scientific, or psychological
organizations with little philosophy to fall back upon.
Everything said and done, we see that more harm comes from
intense, crystallized virtue than comes from vice. Martyrdom is
an example. Particularly one you administer to another. It is
easier to make a martyr of another than to become one yourself.

> The antidote to ill will and fighting is to make a joke out of
> it. I have heard others be rude repeatedly. Ordinarily, the
> situation would be ready to come to blows in a fistfight. I
> would laugh aloud. My laughter would wipe it out. It would make
> the conflict into something else. Others would see the humor and
> be startled out of their argument. On a large scale, it is
> difficult to say if it would work. Some, like newspaper
> cartoonists, attempt it.
>
> Religionists think they have the only way, and that they must
> force you to be "saved." At the same time, they teach the Maker
> gives you free will and you make your own choices. "God forces
> nothing on you," they say, "but I am going to help God do the
> forcing." This is most peculiar.
>
> It reminds me of a joke. A boy was swearing. His minister heard
> him and told him to stop.
>
> The little fellow says, "Why should I? I heard you swear!"
>
> The minister was startled. "You heard me swear," he exclaimed!
>
> The minister made a bargain with the boy to buy him an apple pie
> if the boy ever heard him swear again and told him about it. The
> following Sunday, the boy is in the first pew in the church.
>
> The minister starts talking. After a while, he says, "You know,
> brothers and sisters, by God we live and by God we die."
>
> The little boy said, "Yes, and by God, give me my apple pie!"

> Earlier, you mentioned positive thinking and disease. Is there a
> relation between them like Christian Science says?

Theosophy shows the philosophical implications of Christian
Science to be wrong. They have a good psychological attitude.
Positive thinking has a direct influence on the body. That is
fact. They borrow this idea from ancient Yoga. The Christian
Scientist tells you to think positively and to look upon the
bright side of things. This is conducive to the healing of the
body.

Positive thinking can prevent disease. There is nothing
specifically Christian about this. If you like, it is
scientific. As a fact in nature, it could be Oriental or
Occidental. Certain thought and feeling has its effect upon the
body. That is not an endorsement of Christian Science methods.
It is a good point they make.

Consider the occult argument. Your mental attitude is a superior
energy. The higher mind controls your emotions. As it thinks,
so you feel. The lower mind is the bridge between the higher
mind and the emotions. The emotions color it. The lower mind is
the emotional part of the mind.

Christian Scientists call it the mortal mind. Together, the mind
and emotions gear the astral body. The various levels of the
astral body vibrate in harmony with your emotions. The astral
body manifests the conditions called for by the emotions, as your
mental attitude backs them. If you have wrong or unethical
thinking with selfish emotions, your astral pattern will take
that form. Eventually, the astral body will bring about the same
condition in the physical. The physical body will manifest a
disease. This could be anything from unbalance in the brain and
the nervous system to ulcers, tuberculosis, or cancer. It could
be anything. There is a vast range of possibilities.

Say that by some magic we could pick up the magnetic thread that
connects to the tubercular lungs of a person. We follow it into
his inner principles. We finally come to its origin. We would
find a particular mental condition that originated in past lives.
This condition has a direct line of communication with the
diseased body. When you change the condition, you introduce
healing from within. The disease is not going to heal overnight,
because it took time to happen. Change the mental attitude.
Change the little vice here or the big vice there. Change the
conditions that provoked this physical condition through the
various links in between. Then you have introduced the healing
power. Eventually, the power will harmonize and heal, provided
you have not ruined the physical body beyond healing.

This is a principle of psychiatry too. Psychiatrists need to go
deeper within before they can heal. It is not enough to go into
the psychic self. To be an outstanding psychiatrist, you would
have to be a profound student of the Ancient Wisdom.

True psychology is coming. We will have a greater science than
today. It is only beginning. They will discover spiritual Yoga
or the Esoteric Philosophy. Then we will get more like Carl
Jung, a head and a shoulder above the others of today. We will
not necessarily have more psychiatrists. We will have exponents
of a psychological science far ahead of ordinary medicine.

A doctor of the future will help people with their internal
conflicts. If a doctor of today could see, he would too. If the
doctor really knows what he is doing, he ceases to tinker with
effects and works with causes.

Give a man something for his ulcers. That is fine. If the
emotional and mental patterns that produced the ulcers are
unchanged, there will be another disease. It may not be an
ulcer. It could be one of many diseases. The mental and
emotional pattern shall manifestation on the physical plane
again, back of some other condition.

This great science is in the future. We discern the ABC's of it
in the few people way ahead of ordinary doctors. The great
science of healing from within is beginning. In the future, they
will also use genuine spiritual clairvoyance. This is not
psychic. Some will know that science from past lives. They will
help people, since they have armed themselves with definite,
specific spiritual training. They had to earn this knowledge.

To sum up, it boils down to the supremacy of the inner self over
everything external. The external is important, but the internal
is the realm of causes. From the inner man springs the motives,
desires, and urges -- most accumulated in other lives. Their
impetus molds outer circumstances, together with the environment
provided by others with which we have had karmic relations.

We may get hurt. Something wonderful may happen to us. In
either case, good or bad, do not forget that it is self-made. We
have brought it about. It may appear to come through another,
but that is an illusion. Somehow, that person was part of our
karmic pattern in another life, if not this one. Some invisible
links bind us together. They dish out what we gave rise to in
the past. If not, there would be no law in nature. There would
be no regularity. There would be no cause and effect.

Others can never do anything to us, good or bad. They return to
us what we have given them in the past. Along these inner lines,
we are interconnected. Everybody is an extension of us.
Theosophists try to get that idea ingrained in their minds. It
cuts at the root of complaints, enmities, and dislikes.

If the future, you will feel that anything happening is an
exteriorization of your past karmic pattern. It happens because
you must deal with it here and now. You must be through with
these particular circumstances. They are yours. Someone almost
serves them to you on a platter. They are your own. If there
were no karma here, it could not happen. It would happen to
someone else. You then would merely observe it. This insight
cuts at the root of human enmity. You say, "Thank you, I am glad
to have this at my doorstep again. It is mine. I have to
untangle it. It is a stumbling block in my path that I am
determined to make into a stepping stone."

Do not take the stepping stone and throw it away! It is not an
obstacle. Let it remain. Rise on it, like the ancient story of
the shedding of the serpent's skin. It sheds its old skin, and
issues forth in a new skin, which came out of the old. You meet
circumstances that are your old skin. By manipulating them, you
issue out of them as a renewed man in a new and better skin.

This insight cuts at the root of misunderstanding. When we blame
others, we continue in ignorance and build up resentment. Stop
thanking others for the good things. They are no more
responsible for the good than for the bad. It is customary to
say, "Thank you." Philosophically, you thank and blame yourself.
The rest is an exteriorization of your karma, brought about
through others with which you have karmic relations.

Say "Thank you" for the bad. There is more growth in the
unpleasant. Whatever you do -- pleasant or unpleasant -- will
eventually return. We can meet things with equanimity of mind,
neither elated over good nor discouraged over bad. Things are
neither good nor bad. It is not good to receive money or favors
and bad to be insulted. Get away from those terms! To
Theosophists, these terms are useless. They are experiences,
links in a karmic pattern. Some are unquestionably pleasant.
Some are unquestionably unpleasant. All are opportunities for
growth. As we transcend the pleasant and the unpleasant, where
they no longer affect us, we genuinely grow. We reach a stage of
equanimity. Only duty matters to us, and our determination to
work towards the enlightenment of all that lives.