Theosophy - Theosophical Concepts of Evolution and Religion - Anon
THEOSOPHICAL
CONCEPTS OF
EVOLUTION AND RELIGION
by ANONYMOUS
reprinted
from “Theosophical Siftings” Volume - 1 -
THERE is a close connection between Evolution and Religion,
because Religion is a manifestation of those evolutionary tendencies which
are leading mankind, through cycle after cycle, towards that spirituality and
perfection of being which we now conceive of and express under the term
God.
Evolution in its widest signification implies the development, unfolding, or
growth of the perceptive faculties or functions, so as to enlarge the
consciousness in relation to its environments. In other words, it is the
gradual extension of the boundaries of consciousness. It is the expansion
of that internal and hidden principle of life which pervades all nature, and
which manifests itself on the outward or material plane in an endless
variety of progressive forms, from that which we term dead matter up to the
highly organized, complex, and self-conscious structure of the human
body.
Evolution is that universal principle which forbids anything to stand still.
There exists in all things a perpetual inherent strain or tendency towards
something which is dimly perceived to be possible in the future. That which
exists in the concrete must first exist in the abstract. The real is the
sequence of the ideal. There must be a possibility for the ideal, otherwise it
could not exist. We see this in every department of human activity. The
man of genius is he who grasps the ideal with so firm a hold that he can
bring it down in some concrete form to the perception of his fellow-men.
The ideal is always pressing in upon us. As human beings, we are
conscious of the strain in a great variety of ways. On the plane of the
senses it exists as desire, and leads men on in restless activity, which is
never satisfied even in the attainment of its object; for nothing is more
characteristic of human ambition than that the moment the goal is actually
reached, or the cup of pleasure raised to the lips, the object appears
worthless, there is still a further goal to reach, or the cup of pleasure
becomes a draught of poison.
Men are driven at last, by reason of the universality of this experience, into
fixing their desires and hopes on a higher plane, where they imagine [Page 2]
that the obstacles to their enjoyment of that happiness which they are ever
seeking but never finding, will cease to exist; and they turn instinctively to
religion for guidance and comfort. But the religious instinct is not merely
born of repeated failures to obtain happiness on the material plane. It exists
as a strain or evolutionary tendency of the higher or spiritual part of our
nature, which has its own laws of progression corresponding to those
which operate on the physical plane. It is indeed, more strictly speaking,
the operation of this strain on the higher planes which causes that
progression of more and more highly organized forms in the physical world,
which is what Science understands by the term Evolution. Occult science
traces the evolutionary wave through three elemental kingdoms of nature,
from thence through the mineral, vegetable, and animal, in succession,
until it reaches the human. That which really evolves, the individual monad,
assumes, time after time, a fresh form or personality, and requires, as the
result of its growing consciousness, a more and more perfect organization
in which to function. We do not perceive the real man, the Ego, because he
exists on a higher plane than that of the physical senses, but we have
some conception of this higher principle in that which we term character,
and we may read the signature of the real man in the structure of the
various parts of the body, the formation of the head, the physiognomy, the
shape and lines of the hand, etc. A man who has no generosity, for
instance, in his character, will be deficient in certain physical developments
which correspond to this quality of the soul. Nature works on clear and
definite lines, and similar forces at work on the higher planes will produce
similar manifestations on the lower. In this way we come to a knowledge of
the higher through the lower, in which we see the higher reflected. So long
as our consciousness is centred on the lower, we take the reflection for the
real. This is what science is doing at the present day. Science deals with
the laws which operate on the material plane, and with regard to the law of
evolution she has been able to trace a certain progression of species, and
more than suspects, though she cannot actually prove, that the higher
forms of life have developed in turn through all the lower; but of those
higher and subtle forces in nature by reason of which this progression
takes places, she knows absolutely nothing.
Science is agnostic in reference to anything that transcends the material
plane, and regards consciousness as inherent in our physiological
functions, it being the evolution of these functions which brings an increase
of consciousness, and this consciousness has reached the highest
perfection in man because he has the most highly organized body, and
more particularly the best developed brain. This view docs not permit of
any previous existence for that consciousness which is now centred in any
particular human being, neither does it permit of any existence for it outside
of the [Page 3] physical organization, or after the death of the same; unless
indeed, we conceive in some sort of way of a spiritual body being hatched
out of the physical.
Science
may appear superficially to be leading men into Agnosticism
and Atheism, but this is only a passing phase. The value
of the scientific work of the age is to be found in those
broad generalizations and conceptions of the working of
natural law, which finds one principle acting alike in
both great and small; and when men have grasped firmly
the unity, harmony, and solidarity of the physical universe,
they have only to carry their conceptions one step forward,
to assimilate their knowledge with their intuition, to
carry their conceptions of natural law into the spiritual
world, to grasp firmly the universal principle of Love,
and they will find themselves in possession of a religion
founded on reason and knowledge; they will find that science
has led them up to a far grander Monotheism than
that which it was the supposed special mission of the Jewish
race to proclaim, and of the Messias to complete.
In the meanwhile it would appear inevitable that in the reaction from the
intellectual and moral bondage of priestcraft and dogma, men should turn
to science for that infallibility which they ever desire, and should lose sight
for the time being of the possibilities of their spiritual ideal, in those
scientific discoveries and inventions which have revolutionized the
conditions of civilization in the present century. There is a danger lest
materialism should swallow up all spiritual insight, and men become still
further immersed in the illusions of the senses. The individual may pass
through this stage in the natural development of his conceptions, and the
experience of the individual is repeated on a larger scale in the community,
the nation, and the race. But the spiritual forces at work in a man will not
allow him to maintain this position long. Sooner or later he must come face
to face with his higher self, of whose existence he has hitherto been only
dimly conscious. In the far back ages of human history we find that this
consciousness took the form of the grossest superstition and idolatry, such
as we find prevailing in some races at the present day; but as the Ego
accumulates experience in a sequence of lives or incarnations on the
physical plane, he is gradually lifted out of superstition by the aid of reason
and knowledge, and there comes a time when he has to bring his
intellectual faculties to bear upon those religious dogmas which he has
hitherto accepted as authoritative and infallible.
If
a man is a religionist merely on account of feeling, sentiment,
emotion, or fear which he cannot analyse or define, he
will belong to that religion which prevails in the community
into which he is born; he will be a slave to the religious
opinions of the time, and unable to free himself from the
bondage of orthodoxy, from the accumulated mass of formula
and dogma which overlies the universal truth.[Page
4]
The intellectual
phase of the evolutionary process is largely operative
in the present age, and is leading men, in the reaction
from superstition, into an attempt to determine all questions
by the aid of the intellect alone. The present generation
is engaged in intellectually examining the credentials
of religion; and religion, as represented by the church,
has by no means a liking for the process.
Dogmatic
religion is not reasonable; it distinctly repudiates
the reasoning faculties, and refuses to permit the intellect
to exercise its function of discrimination. To the Christian
of today there is no appeal beyond the Bible, and what
he conceives to be the interpretation thereof. The Mahomedan
equally swears by his Koran, and so with the sacred books
of every other religion. When the time comes, however,
in a man's experience for his creed to be confronted
by his reason, he finds that those doctrines which he
has hitherto regarded as sacred and infallible, are not
so regarded by others, and that the authority of his own
particular church is only one of a great number of conflicting
authorities. This is a sad blow to his faith, and he
then endeavours to find some intellectual basis, some
unanswerable argument in support of his cherished belief.
Many men succeed in doing this, or succeed just up to
that point where it is most desirable that knowledge
and reason should take the place of authority and dogma.
Beyond this point they affirm that it is impossible to
go, and that what remains is a matter of divine revelation,
and can only be grasped — so far as our present life
is concerned — by means of faith. On the
other hand, a man's faith may
utterly break down in the effort to discriminate between
one belief and another, and as often as not he is driven
into atheism and an unreasoning contempt for all religion
whatsoever.
Man's
experience works in cycles, and after rising to the spiritual
plane through the emotions of religion, he may again descend
into matter, and working through the intellectual plane,
he will re-ascend to the spiritual,
plusknowledge. While on the descending
arc he loses sight of the spiritual part of his nature,
but on the ascending arc this grows brighter and clearer,
and becomes self-conscious, as the result of the experience
through which the Ego has passed. There are many such
cycles in the evolution of the Ego, the real man, and
what is true of the individual is true of the race and
also of the whole universe. There is only one law operating
in both great and small. That which takes place in the
individual unit is a reflection of similar processes
which are repeated in ever-increasing magnitudes throughout
the circle of eternity. The microcosm reflects the macrocosm.
As above so below, is the fundamental truth by which
we are able to transfer our knowledge to that which is
unseen, and grasp those universal principles which must
become the basis of our faith. There is a law of
correspondences which enables us to penetrate deeper [Page
5] and
still deeper into the workings of nature, but we shall
never find a break, we shall never find a spiritual world
where there is no natural law, nor a natural
world where spirit is not ever present. The triangles
are interlaced. Night and day, summer and winter, these
are smaller cycles within the larger ones to which they
correspond, and which stretch out in an endless succession
of Kalpas and Yugas; the days and nights of Brahmâ;
the Manvantaras and the Pralayas. The activity of the
day is followed by the unconsciousness and sleep of night.
So is our life. The sleep of death is followed by a reawakening,
and the man takes up his real life-task at the point
at which he left off. As the actions of yesterday are
related to those of today, so are those of our previous
incarnation related to the present one, and the present
becomes the potentiality of the future.
Occult
Science possesses an accurate knowledge of the duration
of those cycles through which the human race has to pass
in its evolution as a whole, from the lower forms of matter
up to that unity with the Divine principle which is its
ultimate goal.
In
the meantime, with regard to that personality in the physical
plane which is all that most people know of man,
this personality may be the expression of any of the many
stages in the evolutionary process. The race, as a whole,
progresses, because the individual units progress, but
the individual units do not keep pace with each other,
for in that case there could be no difference of opinion
in the world; for all would be in exactly the same state
of consciousness, and would perceive things in the same light.
The present personality of the man, therefore, represents
merely a passing phase in the history of the real man,
in the descent of the spirit into matter, and its reascent
to the spiritual-plane plus self-consciousness.
The real man, the Ego, the Divine Ray, must incarnate,
must see itself reflected in matter in order to attain
to self-consciousness, just as the individual must see
his personality reflected in a glass so long as he is unable
to step outside of that personality in order to view it.
Until
the man has attained to spiritual self-consciousness
he will be unable to recognize the illusory and transient
nature of that reflection which forms his present personality,
and will regard the personality as a real thing, having
a separate and isolated existence. Not until the spirit
has become fully self-conscious will its evolution on
this plane be complete, and the necessity for reincarnation
cease to exist. On the physical plane everything is subject
to the law of change, there is no permanent state. The
personality cannot endure. It fades away with the exhaustion
of those forces which produced it, and the spirit sinks
into the sleep of death, to reawaken with a new personality,
the conditions of which have been determined by the “Karma” of
its past incarnation.
In
various parts of the world, in different nations and races,
we find men in every stage of the evolutionary process,
from the savage to the [Page
6]
philosopher,
and still higher. You cannot make a Plato or a Newton,
a Christ or a Buddha, out of a Fetish worshipper in his
present incarnation, but you must grant him the possibility
of becoming one in a future age; and meanwhile he finds
an expression or reflection of that state of consciousness
at which he has arrived in one or other of those concrete
forms of superstition or religion in which the universal
truth finds a partial expression.
Like
the movement of a so-called fixed star,
so is the evolution of a unit of the human race. A thousand
years are scarcely sufficient to determine that it does
actually move, and our present conceptions of time and
space are utterly inadequate to deal with those magnitudes
with which we stand face to face, and which we name eternity.
It is well that it is so. It is well that we cannot remember
the processes by which we have reached our present stage,
nor form an adequate conception of that which awaits
us. It is well that the sleep of death should obliterate
all memory of our previous incarnation, leaving only
the aroma, the essence, as a permanent addition to the
character of our real, our higher self. To most people
one short life-time appears all too long, too hard, too
much fraught with sorrow and suffering to be worth living
save for the reward of an eternity of bliss. It is well
that religion should speak of Heaven to sustain those
whose faith is weak, and it is well that she should hold
the terrors of Hell over those who cannot perceive the
inherent quality of evil. The personality of man shrinks
to naught before the infinity of time and space, but
in his essence he is Divine, and if he would rise to
a knowledge of his divinity and claim his birthright
as a “Son of God”, he must learn to live in the
Eternal, to participate in that consciousness which knows
neither time nor space. The illusions of matter must cease
to throw a veil over his spiritual perceptions, and human
hopes, fears, and passions no longer subjugate him, and
bring his spirit back to earth on the current of unsatisfied
desire.
To
unite religion and science, spiritual truth and natural
law, that is what men require in the present age; and having
need of this larger knowledge they shall surely find it.
Science is slowly leading men up to that conception of
the unity of nature which will enable them ultimately to
free themselves altogether from the bondage of superstition,
and grasp that universal principle which finds its expression
in each and every religion. And when men are prepared for
this larger knowledge it will take possession of them and
become the spirit of the age; for there are those who,
having gone before, have become masters and adepts in the
higher wisdom, and are ever ready to impart their knowledge
to those who are spiritually prepared to receive it.
It
is because the age is to some extent ripe for the reception
of this larger knowledge that a portion of it has lately
been given to the world [Page
7]through
the medium of the Theosophical Society and its founders.
This knowledge constitutes a portion of the ancient Wisdom
Religion, or Secret Doctrine, which was never given to
the masses in its esoteric form, but which is the basis
of every exoteric religion, and is taught in the Bible
as in every other sacred book in every nation and tongue.
It is purposely wrapped up in allegory and fable, the
lives of historical personages being often taken as the
narrative basis. The Church cannot interpret the Bible,
for she has lost the key, and clings blindly and doggedly
to the letter that killeth, while the spirit of knowledge
which men seek has to be found elsewhere. Men turn from
the narrow conceptions of the Church to that light which
science offers. Ofttimes the reaction leads them to accept
the dogma of science with as much unreason as they previously
showed in clinging to the dogma of religion; but a basis
will surely be found which will make religion scientific
and science religious. Such a basis is that which Theosophy
now offers to the world, and it remains to be seen how
far that which Theosophy teaches can meet the wants of
the race in its present stage of evolution.
There
exists a great tendency, in reference to Theosophical teachings,
to regard these as being merely a set of doctrines which
are to take the place of existing forms of religion. It
is, perhaps, inevitable that this should be so, owing to
the limited ideas of the majority of men in reference to
the scope, claims, and authority of religion, in the common
acceptation of the term, and the persistency with which
the human mind clings to form, to that
which is material and tangible. The result of this is, that
Theosophy is looked upon in the light of a competitor by
those who wield the power of authority in the various churches
and sects, and that even those who are sufficiently impartial
to give the subject any consideration, do so in the hope
of finding some authoritative doctrines which shall take
the place of certain others, respecting which they may
have their doubts.
Strictly
speaking, Theosophy does not teach any doctrine whatever,
but there are certain primary concepts which belong essentially
to Theosophy, and without which it could not become the
common platform on which men of every race and creed can
unite. Theosophy looks upon the human race as a whole;
its creed is the Brotherhood of Humanity, and its practice
Altruism. A Theosophist may be a Christian or a Jew, a Mahomedan
or a Buddhist, or any other shade of opinion whatever in
the matter of religion, from various causes connected with
that progressive state of his real ego, which we have already
sketched out; but he can claim no monopoly of truth, and
must grant to his fellow-men an equal right to those opinions
and beliefs which they may hold for the time being. That
such an universal spirit of toleration may prevail is proved
by the success which has attended the efforts of the Theosophical
Society, and by the thousands of all shades of opinion
who have openly joined the movement. [Page
8] But still
the power of authority holds sway over the majority of
human minds, and the orthodox of
every religion will still continue to regard all other
religions, and Theosophy in particular, as a delusion and
a snare.
Take,
for instance, the Christian, religion, with which perhaps
the majority of our readers are more familiar than with
any other. What does orthodox
Christianity teach to those who are brought up within its
influence ? It teaches first and fundamentally that it alone
is the one truth concerning God and his dealings with man;
that to be outside the Christian Church is to be outside
the divine favour; that those who reject the Christian teachings
are lost sinners, and that the millions who never heard of
Christ, are heathens who must perish under the curse of Adam,
unless the teachings of the Bible can be brought to them
in time. Now let us consider that in this belief millions
of men and women have been brought up without any means of
knowing better, and that millions of children are being educated
in the same manner. We all know how strong is the effect
of early training, and how it clings to a man all through
his life, however much he may appear to have broken loose
from its restraints. When a man who has lived a careless
and worldly life finds himself at last on the brink of the
grave, his mind reverts to what little he learnt of religion
in his early days, and as a drowning man catches at a straw
so will he endeavour to obtain some hope to which he can
look in the darkness that is closing round him.
It
requires a strong individuality, and a wide view of humanity,
to enable a man to lift himself out of the bondage of custom
and habit. The narrowness and provincialism of the man
who has never left his country village is a standing proverb.
He judges everything by the standard that pertains to his
own little circle of neighbours and acquaintances. Of the
great world outside he may know something by report, but
he can have only a very inadequate conception of any state
of society other than that in which he lives; and should
he chance to go out into the greater world, his provincialism
is patent in all his doings and sayings. The man who lives
only in one narrow religious circle is just as absurd, just
as provincial in his ideas as the countryman who knows
nothing of the larger life of the city, where the forces
which mould the destinies of the nation are centred, and
intensified a thousand-fold, and beat and surge in great
waves of human passion and suffering. It is the faculty
of living in the larger life of humanity, of grasping the
principles which underlie the phenomena, which distinguishes
the poet and the artist, the statesman, philosopher, and
man of science.
It
is only by getting outside of a thing that we can
view that thing in its due proportion, and assign to it
its proper place in relation to the whole. The more we
enlarge our consciousness, the smaller becomes the importance
of those objects in which it was previously centred. We need
to rise [Page
9]above
the influence of human passions, hopes, and fears, before
we can view these in their proper light. The man who lives
in his religion as the countryman lives in his village,
and refuses to believe that there is any comfort or safety
outside of it, fails to grasp that larger conception of
humanity which is the first principle of Theosophy. He
fails to grasp the principles which underlie the phenomena,
and which make one man a Christian and another a Buddhist,
and all equal in the sight of God.
If
we say that this is what every orthodox religionist
does, we shall say that no orthodox person can be
a Theosophist, though
he may be member of the Theosophical Society. Of course there
are all grades and shades of orthodoxy: “orthodoxy is my
doxy, heterodoxy is your doxy”, said
Dr. Johnson. But inasmuch as orthodoxy is exclusive, it cannot
recognise the fundamental concept of Theosophy, which makes
no distinction between orthodoxy and heterodoxy. You cannot
have an orthodox Theosophist, because a man is either a Theosophist
or he is not one; he has either stepped outside the line
which orthodoxy draws between one belief and another, or
else he remains within his own narrow creed.
It
is undoubtedly a fact that within the Christian Church
there is now a much broader and more enlightened spirit
than could have been supposed to exist some fifty or even
twenty-five years ago, but if the church gives way once
she may give way again. If she abandons doctrines which
were previously held to be the very essence and essential
of religion, where is the final point, the ground from
which she cannot be driven ?
With
the progress of knowledge, civilization, and science,
the conflict which is ever being waged between the new
and the old, between established conceptions, hereditary
faith, creeds, dogmas, and doctrines — owing much
of their power and influence to the very fact of their being
established and in possession of the field — is ever
changing its ground. Some new generalization, deeper and
more comprehensive than any which have preceded it, claims
the attention of the conflicting parties, and is raised as
a banner round which the fight concentrates. It is most difficult
to uproot established ideas of whatever kind, whether in
our own mind or that of the community. An established cause
has not merely its votaries but its vested interests, it
has not merely those who uphold it through force of habit,
hereditary conviction, or social convenience, but it has
its institutions, its priesthood, and a host of those who
are vitally interested, either directly or indirectly, in
its maintenance. Hence it arises that any innovation which
threatens to overturn the existing order is met by deadly
hatred. This is not merely the case as between religion and
science. It is exemplified in history in a thousand ways,
and we cannot expect that religious institutions should be
exempt from the general law. Not merely, however, is religion,
not exempt, but it is the most striking example that can
be found. Religion, dealing as it does with man's highest
nature, with [Page
10]his
most powerful instincts, appealing to his inmost heart
and conscience, and professing to be his guide and mentor
in this world, and his hope of salvation in the next, exercises
such a sway over his mind and imagination that an institution
such as the Church is far more powerful than any merely
secular organization; nor have there ever been wanting
men who seized upon this enormous power, and wielded it
for their own ambitious purposes. At the time when the
church exercised a temporal as well as a spiritual power,
she used that power with terrible effect, and wrote upon
the page of history a blackened record of fire and blood.
The Church of the present day professes to look with abhorrence
on the past history of priestcraft, but the spirit of intolerance
and persecution still exists, and there are not wanting
in the present time examples of terrorism and cruelty exercised
in the name of religion.
History
presents to us several well-defined points or centres
round which the conflict between science and religion
has raged at different times, and in which religion has
always been worsted. Such, for instance, was the controversy
respecting the position of the earth in relation to the
solar system, in which Galileo led the way on the part
of science. This was the conflict between the Church
and astronomy, in which science has been finally and
conclusively victorious. Next we have the conflict with
geology, and the controversy respecting the age of the
earth, in which matter the church still clings to the
Mosaic records. Then followed the grand generalization
of science contained in the doctrine of the conservation
of energy, which struck at the very root of what religion
conceived to be necessary for the exercise of the creative
and administrative power of a personal God. In the present
day it is evolution which appears as a monster, threatening
to swallow up all that religion can still cling to in
Biblical cosmogony. Evolution strikes at one of the oldest
and most deeply rooted notions of Biblical faith: the
idea of the creation and fall of man. If this has to
be given up, what becomes of the birth and redemption
of Christ ? What becomes of the inspiration of the Bible,
or even its value as an historical record ? The ultimate
issue is scarcely doubtful, however, and we have only
to look back at the storm of controversy which was raised
by such books as Lyell's
“Geology”, Darwin's “Descent of
Man”,
or Chambers' “Vestiges
of Creation”; and note with what complacency
these and similar books are now regarded, to be convinced
that science must win the day. Already the foremost thinkers,
the wisest men in the Church, are endeavouring to modify
the accepted interpretation of the Bible, in order to bring
it into harmony with the overwhelming weight of scientific
evidence. Alas for the apologists ! they yield the ground
inch by inch, but slowly and surely the wave of advancing
knowledge is obliterating the little sand-heaps which they
raise in the hope of staying the [Page
11]tide.
Science has come to teach much more than an isolated
knowledge of matter and its properties. By its inductive
methods it has arrived at certain generalizations, at
certain conceptions of the operation of universal law,
which strike at the very root of the cherished ideas
of religion respecting divine interference and revelation.
It strikes at the whole record of the Old Testament,
so far as that relates in an exoteric form the origin and
progress of the race towards divine knowledge, by a series
of divine manifestations and interventions. It strikes
at the miraculous in the New as well as in the Old Testament.
It asserts that the laws of nature never have been, and
never will be, broken. It extends to the remotest time,
and to the most distant regions of space, the laws and
principles which are found to condition us on this earth.
It asserts the unity of the Cosmos, the operation of
the same laws in both small and great, and the absolute
unchangeable-ness and reliability of these laws. Looking
back, it traces the present order to a pre-existing one,
and that again to an earlier one, an endless sequence of
cause and effect, but through all the self-same laws in
operation as those which we find at the present day. Looking
forward, the same view presents itself. Time is but a conception
of our brain, something inherent in our mental constitution.
Nature knows no time. She is the same yesterday, today,
and for ever. Our little span of life is great in comparison
with the life of the lower orders, some of which complete
their term in a few moments, yet our longest span is
as naught compared with the life of the species, and that,
again is but a passing phase — the whole history
of our globe but a raindrop falling into the ocean of
eternity.
What
name shall we give to these conceptions of science ? Shall
we call them Atheism, Materialism, Agnosticism, or do they
admit of Deism or Pantheism ? Well, let them be any one
or all of these, they exist for the time being as forms,
representative of various states of knowledge or consciousness
of the human mind relative to the universal mind, relative
to absolute truth, for absolute truth must include all
its manifestations. In the mineral, vegetable, and animal
kingdoms, we see that the principle of life
manifested in thousands of forms, ever ascending the evolutionary
scale from what we term dead matter to the highly
organized and self-conscious animal called man. We do not
see the transformation from unconscious or
dead matter to organic structures, nor from the lower
forms of these through all the intermediate grades of vegetable
and animal up to the human race, for these processes take
millions and millions of years, and according to the teachings
of occult science are not effected on this globe only. But
though the change takes place so slowly as to be imperceptible
even to the most extended range of ordinary scientific investigation,
yet we may apprehend that all the forms which we now see
existing in the various kingdoms of nature are only temporary,
partial and progressive manifestations [Page
12] of the one
life, of that which underlies the form, and
of which the form is an expression for the time being,
representing a certain idea or state of consciousness.
In
the same way with those higher aspects of consciousness
which are manifested in the human mind. In no two minds
does consciousness exist in absolutely the same degree,
any more than two leaves of a tree are exactly alike. Collectively
we are able to say that the leaves belong to the same tree
or species, and also that a man belongs to a certain class,
religion, or school of thought, each of which represents
collectively a well-defined idea, or state of consciousness,
relatively to that absolute principle or truth which each
partially expresses.
Men
are ever trying to reach this principle, it is the evolutionary
power which prevents them from standing still, and from
the time being, because they cannot estimate the forward
movement, they fondly imagine that they have found it in
some one or other of the forms or systems of religion
of philosophy.
But
the absolute truth must include every religion, every philosophy,
and must show the connection and necessity of each. The
man, therefore, who only recognises the reflection of truth
in one religion, one philosophy, or one school of thought,
by whatever ism it may be called, is still under
the veil of maya, has still to learn that the same
principle which manifests itself in the outward world in
thousands of forms and species, in shapes of loveliest
beauty as well as in deadly and hideous forms, manifests
itself also in the human soul in corresponding and ever-varying
phenomena.
Man
is ever collecting from the elements of Nature and building
around himself a concrete structure in which to centre
his consciousness, until at last he loses sight altogether
of the larger possibilities and nature of his real self,
and takes that to be the only real which he has in pain
and sorrow succeeded in centring around his personality.
We find this illustrated in every phase of his existence,
from the larger cycle of the descent of the spirit into
matter during the Manvantara, to those smaller cycles which
constitute each successive earth-life of the Ego. On the
morning of each day, after the sleep and unconsciousness
of night, the man awakes, and
necessity compels him to take up his task at the
point at which he left it yesterday. So after the sleep
of death,
Karma becomes active, and the Ego begins to construct
a physical body in which it may function and manifest
in that form which
corresponds to its real character or state of consciousness.
The child is spiritual, pure, innocent, free; lives half
in heaven and half on earth, for the spirit is not yet wholly
centred in the physical organization. We watch the growth
from childhood to manhood; what becomes of the innocence,
the purity, the spirituality ? how often do we mourn the
loss of these! The veil of the illusion of the senses is
complete: the child becomes a man, and loses sight altogether
of his higher [Page
13] self,
his spiritual nature, or retains it only as a vague aspiration
which finds an expression in religious emotion. He commences
on a still lower plane, the same process of accretion,
accumulation and self-centralization which brought him
to earth, and spends his energies, his divine powers,
in the gratification of the senses, or the acquisition
of wealth, fame, or power; calling these hisown,
and centring in them his whole life and consciousness.
Truly did Christ say that a rich man should hardly enter
the kingdom of heaven, and that to do so we must become
as little children.
It
is not that either wealth or fame are in themselves evil,
but simply the desire for them which leads men to expend
their life forces on that which is illusory and transitory,
and which blinds them to the higher possibilities of their
nature, and hinders the development of the real, the divine
man.
Science
endeavours to connect all the phenomena of the universe
in one harmonious whole, and to show the inter-dependence
and co-relation of every part, and though she has only
succeeded in doing this to a very limited extent on the
physical plane merely, yet it is fundamental with her that
not one atom exists except as an integral and necessary
part of the whole, and not one form of life is manifested
apart from that universal principle which is active in
everything that lives and moves and has its being.
And
now what is required is that this principle of unity shall
be extended so as to embrace the higher psychical and spiritual
aspects of our nature, so as to embrace that inner consciousness
of our relation to a higher and unseen world which men
in all ages have sought to express in a thousand different
ways. What is required is a knowledge of the co-relation
of the physical with the spiritual, a bold step forward
from matter to spirit, from the seen to the unseen, from
the known to the unknown.
Religion
is a witness in each individual heart to the possibilities
and reality of the unseen universe, and just as men's conceptions
of the material world have varied from age to age, and
assumed now one form, now another, so have his conceptions
of the world of spirit varied and found expression in numberless
forms of worship and superstition.
But
religion has hitherto drawn a sharp line of demarcation
between the natural and the supernatural, between the material
and the spiritual. With regard to the spiritual she claims
a supernatural revelation, and in so far as each and every
religion lays claim in a special sense to such a revelation,
there must exist an antagonism between one religion and another
in their lower, outward, or exoteric aspect. But that no
line of demarcation really exists, such as religion claims,
is readily apprehended when we see how science is ever
pushing this imaginary line further and further back, is
ever carrying natural law further and further into
those [Page
14]shadowy
realms to which the mind of man relegates those personal
activities with which he invests his conceptions of a Deity.
Darkness and ignorance co-exist with superstition and fear;
knowledge and light bring truth and love.
Does
God retreat as science advances, or is he the same yesterday,
today, and for ever ? To what region can we now relegate
those personal activities of the Deity, those miracles with
which the Old and New Testaments are crammed ? If these
are to stand in their literal, external, and narrative
form, it rests with those who uphold them, with the church,
to bring them into harmony with what we now know respecting
the operation of natural laws. But if the first chapter
of Genesis, and the Mosaic record of the dealings of Jehovah
with his chosen people are to be considered as myths, allegories
and fables, what becomes of the connection between the
Old and the New Testaments ? If the foundations are taken
away, what becomes of the superstructure ?
Although
the church as a body still clings to the text of the Bible,
there are those in her ranks who perceive the hopelessness
of doing so, and who endeavour to meet the enlightenment
and science of the age by a corresponding advance. Within
the Church, as well as outside of it, the old beliefs are
crumbling to dust before the advancing tide of knowledge,
which is slowly, but surely, pushing the supernatural further
and further back.
And
now men no longer believe in the super-natural
at all, and they reject all and every religion that is
based upon supernatural claims. And yet — strange paradox — while
supernatural religion is losing its hold on men's minds,
supernatural science — if we may use such a term for
the time being — is taking possession of the field.
While men are casting off the marvellous on which they have
hitherto based their conceptions of Deity, there is opening
up before them a still more marvellous region, and phenomena
which for the time being appear to be nothing more or less
than miraculous in the very largest sense of that term. The
literature of the day terms with the “occult”.
Spiritualism has its thousands of adherents who can testify
to the reality of certain phenomena which are not produced
by any known physical means. Science, for the time being,
denies these manifestations en
masse,
for science is as dogmatic in her way as religion, but even
science is now compelled to investigate them, and to testify
to the reality of phenomena which she formerly denied. Mesmerism
has been dubbed by another name, because science would not
acknowledge Mesmer and his teachings, and so now it is called “hypnotism”
and under this name has been subject to ample scientific
demonstration. Thought-reading and clairvoyance have been
attested by a learned and scientific body such as the Society
for Psychical Research.. Even ghosts, which have hitherto
been considered [Page
15] essentially
supernatural, are receiving scientific attention, while
works on alchemy, astrology, and palmistry abound.
Truly
the supernatural is ever pressing in upon us, and if we
drive it back in, one direction, it takes us by a flank
movement. But super-naturalism is not necessarily superstition.
Superstition implies ignorance and a dread of those powers
of which we are ignorant. But now we must drop the term
supernatural, for the supernatural is no longer a
superstition, it is becoming a science.
Those
who are acquainted with the teachings of the EsotericDoctrine
respecting the evolutionary cycles of the various races,
will recognize how this state of things is being brought
about in the present age. Man having passed the turning point,
the lowest part of the cycle, and being now on the ascending
arc, his whole being is becoming more spiritualized, and
he is developing additional faculties which enable him to
cognise certain things which are beyond the reach of the
mere physical functions. But it is no longer with superstitious
awe that he will regard the unknown region he is about to
enter. With a knowledge of the unbroken sequence of cause
and effect on the physical plane, and a reliance on the order
and unity of natural law, he will be able to carry his knowledge
and conceptions a stage further, and grasp the reality of
the higher planes of existence which are not cognizable with
the physical faculties, but which nevertheless are objective
and real to those faculties (as yet but little known to the
majority of men) which correspond with and find their expression
on the higher planes. There is no sudden jump from the natural
to the supernatural, from the sensuous to the supersensuous,
from the physical to the spiritual. The spiritual world is
not that which we enter at death: it is here, now, ever present,
ever becoming; and if we are not cognizant of it, that is
because our spiritual faculties are not developed, because
we have no spiritual self-consciousness. Our consciousness
is centred in our physical organs, and
matter on the physical plane appears the only real.
There
is no arbitrary line between time and eternity, between
past, present, or future; neither is there any line of
demarcation between the material and the spiritual. The
aspects, laws, conditions, and phenomena of the one are
the expression of similar laws conditioning the other.
Men
are putting aside superstitious religion based upon supernaturalism.
They are putting aside the Bible as a collection of fables
and myths no longer tenable, and the question is whether
in doing so they are making a progressive or a retrogressive
step. It would appear that at first the step must be retrogressive;
it is a smaller cycle within a larger one, and commences
with a descending arc. The reaction from superstition leads
to materialism, but this is only temporary.
And
now, when men are demanding a larger knowledge and a deeper
spiritual insight, there is discovered to them a possibility
and source of [Page
16] knowledge
and wisdom far surpassing their largest expectations.
This knowledge is only new in the sense that it is now
given to the world afresh and in a new form. In reality,
it is as old as the hills, for it is the ancient
“Secret Doctrine”, or “Wisdom Religion“,
which has been the inheritance of the spiritual adepts
and initiates in all ages. It does not supersede, but it
gives a new meaning to old beliefs. It does not put aside
the sacred books, but it is the true key and commentary
to them, for it gives the real meaning of that which
they express in allegory and fable.
From
the first chapter of Genesis to the last chapter of Revelation,
we may read the Bible without this key, and it will claim
our superstitious reverence, and belief in its superhuman
origin, or be rejected in the light of modern science and
criticism. But when once we have apprehended that the Bible
was written by men who knew, that it is a book of
symbolism and not of history, that it contains the same teachings
as the sacred books of other nations and races, only wrapped
up in a different allegory; there no longer exists for us
the necessity of regarding it either with superstitious reverence,
or with incredulity; but it becomes to us a storehouse of
knowledge which we may verify in a thousand ways, without
waiting for an entry into the spirit-world through the gates
of death.
It
is no loss to cast away the supernaturalism of the Bible
if we gain thereby that deeper knowledge which it contains,
but which was never given to the world save in allegorical
form, having generally, however, some slight historical
basis. Is it any loss when we discover the true value and
meaning of the fairy tales and romances which delighted
our childhood ? And if any ask why this knowledge should
be so wrapped up that the real nature of it cannot be recognized
without the key which the SecretDoctrine supplies,
the answer is the same as that which we should give in reference
to the fables which delight the childish mind. There are
some things we cannot tell to a child in their plain meaning,
and others which, if we did tell, he would not understand.
The knowledge is there for him to possess in due time,
but he must grow up to it, and must reach out to it with
his own developed powers and will. Ah! but it is just here
that we fail most to realise our position, to realise that
we are but as the child to the man that will be. With a
view of humanity extending over only a few thousand years
at most, and of the individual confined to one brief life-time,
how can it be otherwise ? The belief that they will
live again on this earth is too heavy a burden for most
people; and did they really know it, they would
be utterly crushed. How few there are who even truly realise
for one moment that some day they must die. It is
always someday with them, and even that preparation for
death which they superstitiously believe to be necessary,
is put off till the last moment. Then the priest is called
in to do that which the man should have been doing for himself
all his life-time. Truly did Christ say to his disciples, “I
have many things to say unto [Page
17]you,
but ye cannot bear them now”. The Bible was written
for men who were even more childish than we are, and
if we think now that we have a claim to be told in somewhat
plainer language what its real meaning is, well, — the
key is now offered to the world. How many of those who
should be most anxious for it will accept it ? We are
told that there are seven keys to unlock the sacred treasures,
and that each key must be turned seven times; how many
in this generation will raise their hand to the lock,
and turn the first key once ? Perhaps they will rather
examine the key as a curious forgery, and even
deny that there is any use for it at all.
Just
as a deeper knowledge awaits the child when he shall have
grown up to that stage where it is possible for him to
lay hold of it, so does a deeper knowledge await the human
race and the individual when they shall have reached that
stage of evolution, that state of consciousness, which
makes it possible for them to apprehend it. Then let the
key be offered to them, and instinctively they know the
use of it. Behold! the truth stands revealed to the inner
man, where previously only the form was perceived on the
outer plane.
But
there is no finality. Deeper and deeper shall we penetrate,
but the infinite is ever before us. Those who have gone
the furthest realise this the best. There is always an
ideal beyond. Our greatest geniuses, poets,
painters, philosophers, are those who know best that they
have but touched the border land of that in which they
excel far beyond all their fellows. And if this be true,
where is that finality, that arbitrary line which every
religion draws, and refuses to believe that others have
the right or the power to step over it except to their
own destruction ? Every religion draws the line in a different
place, and this fact alone should be sufficient to convince
us that there is no one true religion, but that each represents
a certain stage in the evolutionary cycle, and that even
the highest and best, whichever that may be, must necessarily
be only a partial revelation; while the highest and most
exalted conceptions of a Deity must not merely fall far
short of the actual truth, but be subject to the same kind
of change that takes place in the relationship of the child
to his father, when the child becomes a man, and no longer
regards the father as the highest embodiment of wisdom,
knowledge and authority.
Many
a child has asked “Who made us” ? and when he is told
that it was God, he asks, “Who made God?” It
is not merely one veil — that of the
flesh — which hides from us the source of our being.
There is not one inner man merely, but many. Physical man
is the outermost shell which has to be periodically cast
off and periodically renewed, until the next inner man has
developed sufficiently to live and act consciously without
it. The faculties of this next inner man are beginning to
be understood in this generation, and the possibility of
exercising them on a plane which is just once removed from
that of our physical senses is becoming a matter [Page
18] of scientific
knowledge. But it is not here that we shall find those
lines by which religion seeks to limit the illimitable,
or those personal attributes with which she endeavours
to invest the Deity.
“As
in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive
again”. Yea,
truly; only then we must know who Adam and Christ really
represent. The one is not the first man who was created some
6,000 years ago; neither is the other that which the Church
conceives at the present time. Let those who wish to know
use the key.
If
men are unconscious of the possibility, existence, or necessity,
of a deeper knowledge of the Bible than they now possess,
they will reject the key that is offered to them, simply
because they cannot recognise that it is a key, or that
there is anything to open. The material world of sense,
form, and colour is the most real thing to us; we cannot
conceive of any other aspect of those things with which
we are so familiar, and to a knowledge of the real essence
of which this very familiarity is the greatest impediment.
And yet, one step forward in the development of our faculties,
and our conceptions of matter become totally altered;
for matter is no longer solid and tangible; it is no longer
that by which we are conditioned. It does not cease to exist,
but our previous conceptions of it are found to be merely
the illusions of the senses, the necessary result of a certain
state of our consciousness. How reluctant men are to lose
their hold of the solid and tangible, and how eagerly they
cling to life on the physical plane! And so it is also with
the forms in which they clothe their conceptions of the spiritual
activities of the universe.
In
their lowest aspect they are grossly material. We send
missionaries to the poor heathen to show them a better
way, a more spiritual light. Are there no missionaries
required for Christian England ? Are not men asking
on every side for more light, more knowledge, more truth
than the church can give them ? When they ask for bread,
does not the church offer a stone ? Is not the complaint
everywhere heard that the church is losing its hold upon
the masses, while those who lead the way in literature,
science, or art, for the most part unhesitatingly reject
her teachings ? It is not that the Gospel of Christ has
ceased to be a power unto salvation for thousands of souls.
Far be it from us to say that the church has no message
for poor, ignorant, sinful man; only let her not conceive
that those forms in which she wraps up the truth, and in
which she now presents it to the world, have any finality,
solidity, or permanence. Her own history during the present
century will negative this view. We hear something of advanced views
of Christianity in the church, but even the most advanced conceptions
may be found in a new light to be as illusory as are our
present conceptions of the constitution of matter,
as it exists in relation to our physical senses.
If
we wish to convey some idea to the mind of a child, or
an ignorant [Page
19] person,
we must bring the idea down to the level of his intellectual
powers, and present it to him in some suitable form.
The human race, as a whole, are but children in spiritual
knowledge and power, but there are those who have advanced
far beyond the limits which it is possible for us even
to imagine, and who from time to time have given to the
world in such manner as it was possible to do so, that
higher knowledge which they have acquired. They are the “Elder
Brothers” of
the race.
And
now in the present century they have given us a key that
we may unlock some of those treasures, some of those deeper
mysteries of our being which have become thickly encrusted
with the ecclesiastical accumulations of centuries, and
were in danger of becoming even further removed from our
consciousness in an age of materialism and scepticism.
Theosophical
teachings are based upon the larger view of humanity
which we are enabled to take by reason of that knowledge
of the origin, history and destiny of the race which
the “Esoteric Doctrine” reveals. Theosophy is
not a religion, it is rather Religion itself, for
it embraces every religion. Those who cannot advance to that
point where it becomes possible to form a generalization
which shall include every religion as a manifestation of
one universal principle, will probably reject Theosophical
teachings; but others will find in them the possibility of
uniting that which is apparently contradictory and antagonistic
in the exoteric forms in which religion presents itself at
different times, in every country and race, and in the human
heart and consciousness.