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A Seed for the Future?

Mar 25, 2006 07:37 AM
by carlosaveline cardoso aveline






THE THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT AND ITS

LITERATURE -- A SEED FOR THE FUTURE



Dear Friends,


Is there any real, living connection between classical books like “The Secret Doctrine”, “Isis Unveiled”, or “The Voice of the Silence” and the theosophical movement?

Or are these and other books just fine pieces of literature, which for some strange reason happen to sell far more now – and in more countries and languages – than in the first half-century after their publication?

An ordinary amount of common sense can entitle us to answer those questions and to understand the importance of actual cooperation and collective work, in order to test in our lives what we learn in theosophical books, and to attain inner peace and true happiness.

H.P. Blavatsky saw the theosophical movement as a ‘republic of conscience’ (1). Its first object – propagating Universal Brotherhood ‘on practical instead of theoretical lines’ (2) – is far from being a short term goal, and it obviously could NOT be reached, if it were short term. HPB knew very well that the effort she was inaugurating would take at least several centuries to produce visible and consistent results. It was a seed for the future. Such an enduring collective task was to be part and parcel of the preparation for the sixth sub-race of the fifth race – to use “The Secret Doctrine” terms.

H. P. B. wrote in the opening pages of her great work, “The Secret Doctrine”:

“This Work I dedicate to all True Theosophists, in every Country, and in every Race, for they called it forth, and for them it was recorded.”

The words “in every race” do not refer only to all races which live now. They also refer to all future races.

This long term view of things leads us to another important fact.

The theosophical movement is not meant to be a body of Sophists just talking about things for the pleasure of talking, and constantly readapting their representations of facts and truth to their own personal short term interests. Such a sobering fact may sound as surprising for many today – but it can be understood, perhaps, when we consider the long subtitle of HPB’s book “The Key to Theosophy”:

“Being a clear exposition, in the form of question and answer, of the Ethics, Science and Philosophy, for the study of which the Theosophical Society was founded.”

The obvious things sometimes are the most difficult to see, and the projects and purposes of books often appear in their opening pages. Here was H.P.B., in 1889, fully commited to the Theosophical Movement and establishing the central link between Ethics and Theosophy.

That the Movement exists beyond words and appearances; that it has a heart, of which can take part those who would like to start living its teachings in their daily lives, is also made clear in one of the subtitles of “The Voice of the Silence”, a book translated and annotated by H.P.B.

It says:

“For daily use of lanoos (disciples).”

Who are ‘lanoos’? The word “disciple” is not a “status symbol”. It means simply a student, a learner, a person who tries to live according to the teachings. For these persons, forerunners of future civilizations, the theosophhical philosophy is meant.

But – was this living connection between the movement and the ideas clearly stated from the very beginning?

Yes, it was. Let’s take a look at H.P.B.’s first great work, “Isis Unveiled”. In its opening pages, she wrote:

“The author dedicates these volumes to the Theosophical Society, which was founded at New York, A.D. 1875, to study the subjects of which they treat.”

Here, again, we see the “organic” element in HPB’s books.

She was giving humanity food for thought. The theosophical movement was – as it is and will be – the organic place, the living room, the magnetic field, the ‘republic of conscience’ where one can best investigate and study universal truths and laws.

“Separation is the great heresy” as Buddhism teaches. Yet perception of separation is not a heresy in the sense of something “forbidden by an authority”.

It is a heresy in the sense of being an illusion. Recent Physics has already discovered this and has created its own rationale to explain the unity of all things. So have the ecological sciences. The same principle was stated in the 19th century in the three fundamental propositions of “The Secret Doctrine”.

There is no real separation, therefore, between the Adyar Theosophical Society, the Pasadena Theosophical Society, the Edmonton T.S., the United Lodge of Theosophists and many independent, individual truth-seekers which form the theosophical movement created by H. P. Blavatsky, William Q. Judge, Henry S. Olcott and a few other persons in 1875. Robert Crosbie saw and wrote about this essential identity of the movement.

Such an unity in diversity is not mechanical. It is not nominal. It is not bureaucratic, it accepts contrast and paradox, it is magnetic, karmic, inner – and it can find true harmony only in the respect for, and perception of, TRUTH.

The whole of the movement is a seed for the future. Perhaps a seedling already.


Best regards, Carlos


NOTES:

(1) “The Key to Theosophy”, The Theosophy Company (India), 1987, p. 19.

(2) See “The Collected Writings of H. P. Blavatsky”, TPH, India/USA/UK, Volume II, page 104. The text from which comes this expression is entitled “What Are the Theosophists?” .


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