Theos-Talk Archives (January 2007 Message tt00123)

by G. de Purucker

"In listening to what already has been said today, I noticed the same 
thoughts, the same ideas, the same ideals. And my heart was heavy that 
people who believe so much alike, who think so much alike, who perhaps 
work so much alike, and act so much alike, and speak so much alike, 
should be separated by barriers which are as intangible and indeed as 
unreal as was ever any unreality in this material world.

When we remember that the core of every one of us is a spark of the 
Cosmic Life, we realize two things: first, that what separates us as 
human beings, and more particularly as Theosophists, is in fact our 
different respective opinions; and secondly, the lack of a realization 
that we all are one in essence; and just there seems to me to lie the 
crime of this present striving of Theosophist against Theosophist, of 
mind against mind, of the attempt to make one opinion prevail over other 
opinions at the cost to mankind of the sublime realities or truths which 
we are sworn to carry into the world.

Therefore, the most practical thing is for us Theosophists to 
concentrate on disseminating Theosophy as it was brought to us by HPB 
from the Masters. If we do that, we can all meet together in good 
fellowship, in right feeling, in a common sympathy; for all Theosophical 
Societies accept the fundamental precepts of the ancient wisdom-religion 
of mankind which H. P. Blavatsky brought first in our age to the 
Occidental world. Forget opinions, and remember that membership in HPB's 
own Theosophical Society was open to the professors of any belief: any 
religious or philosophical thinker could join the Theosophical Society, 
and remain a member in good standing; and so in actual fact it is today.

Let us avoid the fatal error into which the early Christians fell, who 
in some cases at least had noble motives in doing what they succeeded in 
doing, just as is the case today with a number of earnest Theosophists 
who believe that a practical way of reuniting the Theosophists of the 
various Theosophical Societies in a common work is by the brain-mind 
method of drawing up a list of Articles of Belief, which would serve as 
a "symbol" around which all Theosophists could unite and to which they 
could subscribe.

Alas, history shows us all too clearly that in a little while a "symbol" 
becomes a creed, and that creed becomes hard and fast because it becomes 
dogmatic; and then sectarianism and bitter strife and the achings of 
broken hearts and disappointed and uneasy minds follow in regular order!"

Read more of  G. de Purucker's June 1931 address to the first 
inter-organizational theosophical conference at
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sunrise/49-99-0/th-gdpfr.htm