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Re: Government of the World

Dec 24, 2004 07:08 PM
by Eldon B Tucker


Everyone:

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Eldon Tucker

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "Anand Gholap" <AnandGholap@A...> 
wrote:
> [ www.AnandGholap.net - Online books on Theosophy ]
> 
> " I want to put before you, if I can in these three lectures, a 
certain view of the world, and of the way in which that world is 
guided and directed. As this meeting is a public meeting, there is 
one state­ment I think that I ought to make, which it would not be 
necessary to make, if it were composed of members of the 
Theosophical Society. It is important to remember that in the 
Theosophical Society we have no authority on matters of opinion. 
Every member is free to work out his own theory of life, to choose 
his own line of thought, and no one has the smallest right to 
dictate to any member what he should choose or what he should think. 
In the Theosophical Society there is only one condition which binds 
a member, namely, the recognition of Universal Brotherhood. Outside 
that every member is absolutely free. He may belong to any religion, 
or he may belong to no religion at all. If he belongs to a religion, 
he is never asked to leave it, to change it, but only to try to live 
up to its teachings of spiritual life, recognising the unity of all, 
to live in harmony with people of his own faith and people of other 
faiths. When we speak of Theosophy, we may take the word in one of 
two senses. The first, what it should be to the individual. In that 
sense there is no difference between Theosophy and the ancient 
Brahmavidya of India, the Para Vidya, and the Gnosis of the Greek - 
no difference at all. It is the recognition that man can realise 
God. It is called, in the Upanishad "the knowledge of Him by whom 
all things are known". It is a difficulty rather of our language 
that we speak in that sense of "knowledge", because knowledge 
implies a duality, or indeed a triplicity - the Knower, the Known, 
and the Relation between them - whereas when the Spirit of man, who 
comes forth from Ishvara, realises his own nature, it is no longer a 
case of thinking or of knowing. It is a case of realising that 
identity. You know it is written again in the Upanishad: "He who 
says `I know', he knows not," because the very word knowledge is an 
error in this realisation. In that, we do not say, "I know"; we 
say, "I am". This gives the primary meaning of the word "Theosophy". 
Then it is also used in a secondary sense: a certain body of 
teachings. No one of these particular teachings is binding on any 
member. The whole of these teachings together are the teachings the 
Society is formed to put forward in the world, but it does not make 
them binding on its members. That policy rests on a very sure 
foundation. The foundation is that no man can really believe a 
truth, until he has grown to the extent which enables him to see it 
as truth for himself. A teaching is not really a part of your 
spiritual life; it comes within the mental life, into that part of 
your nature which is said to be knowledge, the intellect; and that 
is able to see that which is akin to itself. The truth in you 
recognises the truth outside you, when once the inner vision is 
open. Hence, in the Society, the study of the great fundamental 
truths of all religions is one of its objects. Members are not asked 
whether they believe in them or not. They are left to study them, in 
the full conviction that just as when the eyes are open the man who 
is not blind sees by the light of the sun, he is not asked to 
believe in the light, so is truth in the mental world. As soon as 
the eyes of the inner nature, the eyes of the intellect, are open, 
it is not a question of argument, but a question of sight. You 
recognise the truth because the faculty of truth in your own nature 
shows that it exists. You see by it, as you see by the light of the 
sun. As long as a man is blind, the sun to him as light is nothing. 
When the eyes are opened then no argument is necessary as to the 
existence of the light by which he sees. Truth is regarded in that 
way, and hence the student is left to study until for himself he 
knows the truth of any doc­trine. The teachings which are spread by 
the Society are those which you find in every great religion. If, 
for instance, you take a book published by the Central Hindu College 
as a text-book for Hindu boys, and an Advanced Text-book for Hindu 
young men in the College, you will find in them certain truths. They 
are given in the Hindi form. If you take the Theosophical text-book, 
used for teaching in schools where all religions are taught, where 
there are boys whose parents hold particular religions, you have 
those truths given which are common to all religions. The only 
difference is that in the Theosophical text-book, the various 
Scriptures of the world in different religions are quoted in support 
of them, while in the Hindu text-book only the Hindu Scriptures are 
quoted. That is the only difference so far as the great ideas are 
con­cerned; the ideas are identical.
>                   
2. You will 
understand that in all that I say now, I am dealing with things as 
they appear to me. They are not binding upon any particular member, 
for the duty of each is to think for himself. They do not commit the 
Society as a Society, because that only puts forward acceptance of 
Universal Brotherhood as a condition of admission. That which I say, 
I am responsible for. What I say is the result of my own study. It 
is for every one of you, Theosophists or non-Theosophists, member or 
non-member, to use your own intellect, your own judgment, your own 
conscience, in weighing every statement that I make. You ought not 
to take them ready-made as truth for you. Everyone must use his own 
thought, and not simply go by that of another. Especially is that 
so, because I am going to deal with abstruse subjects. Speaking of 
them as truths, I am speaking largely on my own knowledge and also, 
in addition to that, taking certain statements congruous with what I 
know, but applied to a much larger area of facts then I myself am 
yet able to reach. For I am going to say a few things about the 
larger Kosmos of the solar systems, which I am not able to examine 
for myself. I am only dealing with the subject before you as a 
whole, and will deal with that part briefly. But it is necessary, in 
order to give you as it were a fairly complete view, because there 
are many other solar systems about which I know nothing. Most of us 
speak about many facts of science which we have not been able to 
verify; for instance, I am unable in astronomy to verify the 
statements of great astronomers as regards the situation and the 
relations of our vast solar system. I have not studied astronomy. If 
I had studied, I could not have attained to the knowl­edge of great 
experts in that particular science. But if I find them teaching on 
the solar system the facts that they have observed and collected by 
telescope and by the many other ways, like the spectroscope, that 
they have of examining the composition of planets other than our 
own, I should take this from them, if their new facts were, 
generally speaking, congruous with what we know as regards our own 
constitution, its relationship to certain other bodies 
mathematically worked out, and so on. We are exactly in a similar 
position in dealing with what are called occult state­ments; namely, 
statements of facts as regards a partic­ular order of existence, with 
some of which we can come into contact in our own world, the 
existence of which to some extent we can find out from the history 
of our own world; there are others as to which we find ourselves 
unable to make discoveries, to gain first-hand knowledge; as to 
them, a large number of statements have been made about them by far 
more highly developed persons than ourselves. It is as true of 
occult science as it is true of astronomy, that a large part of it 
is taken on trust from experts. Certain parts of it may be found out 
by ourselves, by our own study; other parts cannot. The conditions 
are similar to those in astronomy, or in any other science. We must 
give to the study a large amount of time. We must study along 
certain lines which have been verified over and over again. We must 
go on to first-hand knowledge, which is the best but the most 
laborious way of acquiring knowledge. This, however, demands, to 
begin with, a certain amount of faculty for the particular science. 
You may find, for instance, a man who could never become a great 
astronomer - no matter how long he studied; a man who is deficient 
in mathematical power could never become a really great astronomer, 
because the higher mathematics are wanted in much of the astro­
nomical study. If a man is by nature very stupid in that science, he 
could never become a great astro­nomer. So it is also with occult 
study. There are a number of persons who have not got the faculty to 
begin with. It depends upon their past, upon the line of evolution 
along which they have come. Pro­gress depends upon whether they have 
the faculty, how much time they are ready to give to the study, how 
far they are conforming to the rules laid down by experts for 
beginners in the study, and so on. But admitting that there is a 
great difference between the reception given to occult science and 
the reception given to astronomical statements made by experts, 
everybody, practically every educated person, is willing to receive 
the testimony of the greatest astronomers to facts which they are 
themselves unable to observe or to verify. It is not a matter of 
life and death if they are wrong. But when you come to deal with 
statements of occult science, some of which you find in the great 
Scriptures of the world, some of which you find in the ancient 
histories of the world, there is much unfair scepticism in modern 
thinkers. Histories are thrown aside as legendary and mythical. 
Scriptures are thrown aside as superstition, though they contain the 
ideas of ancient peoples, much more learned than ourselves. Hence 
the difficulty of Occultism in justi­fying itself; a man must take it 
just on the lines I have put to you as to astronomical science. But 
the man of the day is ready to receive science which are based on 
apparatus. Where people make very elaborate apparatus, such as 
telescopes, spectroscopes, all kinds of things of extraordinary 
fineness and delicacy, they appeal to the mind of the day, 
especially in the West; they for the moment are most advanced, it is 
said, in ordinary sciences. That is the way the mind works. It looks 
out to the objects and builds up its theories by observation, 
comparison, classification, and so on. Anything that goes along that 
line easily justifies itself to the ordinary modern mind. They do 
not challenge. Occultism works in a different way. It works by the 
development of new organs which are within the man, instead of by 
the manufacture of apparatus which is outside the man. Now the 
development of the inner senses, the inner powers of observation, 
can only be done under certain rules, rules which affect the body 
and the conduct of the man. It is much easier to buy a telescope and 
look at the moon through it, than it is to develop your own nature 
along lines to which evolution has not as yet accustomed us. There 
lies the difficulty of occult study. A person will be willing to 
submit to a discipline, will not resent it, if it is carried on in 
the laboratory of science, but he does resent it if it comes to him 
with the authority of the great Knowers of the past. It is along the 
line of facts thus obtained that I am going to speak to you. 
Therefore you must take them from that standpoint, and understand 
that I am not asking you to believe a thing because I say it. I am 
only putting before you a theory of the Government of the World 
which has many facts to recommend it in his­tory and in religion, but 
which may be challenged by those who do not accept ancient history, 
who do not accept the great Scriptures of the world of religion­ - 
and some which I am going to add from my own study, I will begin 
with that which I am unable definitely to verify. I can only put to 
you certain reasons for accepting it. Now broadly stated they are 
these. We have a solar system consisting of certain planetary bodies 
revolving round the central sun. These bodies are studied, and said 
by ordinary science to be moving under certain definite forces, 
under certain definite laws of nature, as we call them, which by 
observation have been established and re-verified over and over 
again. According to that scientific view, our solar system is to a 
certain extent a self-contained body. The central sun in a sense 
controls the movements of the planetary bodies which circle round 
it. And outside the solar system you have space, practically empty 
space. But science tells us there are a great many solar systems. We 
are only one out of a group. It tells us that the solar systems are 
in groups; and that we belong to a group - the whole group circling 
round another sun far, far, far off in the depths of space; so that 
we are not wholly self-contained. We are under other influences and 
are moving in obedience, as a whole group system, to other laws. We 
do not trouble much about that because we have little opportunity of 
observation. Any part of the argument of science there is 
practically an induction from certain ascertained facts. You make a 
theory that if there were a body exercising certain powers of 
attraction and repulsion, if your partic­ular part moves in a way 
which is not accounted for by anything you can discover, then there 
must be something as yet unknown to you causing these other move­
ments which you cannot trace to any force existing within our own 
solar system. I know very little about that, and do not want to say 
anything more about it."
> 
> Complete book can be read at
> 
> http://www.anandgholap.net/Inner_Government_Of_The_World-AB.htm
> 
>             
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]






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