Theosophy - Man's inner center of calm by Gladys Lawler
MAN'S
INNER CENTER OF CALM
by
Gladys Lawler
THROUGHOUT the ages
of man's history, the quality of calmness, of quietness, of serenity of spirit,
has been associated with the thought of the spiritually developed person. The
scriptures of the great religions are full of this idea. There is the beautiful
story of the Jesus-Christ who calmed the stormy sea, saying, "Peace; be still."
"Be still and know that I am God," sang the psalmist. To know "the peace that
passeth understanding" is spoken of as an ideal toward which to strive.
Yet, as we look
about us, most of the people we see do not manifest evidence of possessing this
peace- this serenity-in their daily speech and actions. As one of our philosophers
has so aptly said, "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation !"
One is lead to wonder
why? What is the hindrance? I would like to advance an idea for your consideration-
an idea of a basic cause for most of the unrest, the turmoil, the confusion,
the unhappiness in people's lives. That cause may be stated in one small word:
fear.
A long time ago a
Great Teacher said to His disciples, "Let not your heart be troubled, neither
let it be afraid . . ." That was sage advice but mankind has largely disregarded
it. Today we live in an age of fears, anxieties, worries, doubts. At this time,
it is our purpose to examine together, briefly, some of the things men most
fear and then to take each in order and subject it to the scrutiny of certain
teachings of the Ancient Wisdom, to see what healing influence (to use a medical
simile) the "X-ray of Divine Wisdom" may have on this malignant growth which
we call fear. Need men suffer from fear? Can its growth be arrested? Can it
be cured? How can we arrive at that wonderful center of calm?
What do men fear?
For purposes of discussion, let us divide our common fears into two main classifications:
those that cluster around the fear of death, and those that surround the fear
of life. These are very general categories, but under them can be grouped, we
believe, all the major causes of men's fears, Let us discuss first the fear
of death.
Concerning this matter
of death and what, if anything, comes after it, there seem to be several schools
of thought, each with its own attendant fears. Let us examine them, one at a
time, in our mental laboratory.
First, the materialist:
His thesis is, "Death is the end. No one can prove there is anything more. We
live; we die; that is all."
Second, the fundamental
religionist: He says, "I believe there is a life after death in another world;
a life where man will either be happy in heaven or tormented in hell for all
eternity, as the result of his deeds or misdeeds in this one brief life on earth."
Third, the agnostic:
He simply says, 'I honestly don't know. I don't believe anyone can know,"
Under whichever
classification one comes in his thinking, he falls heir to certain fears which
are inherent in its basic philosophy. Let us examine each of them in order,
(Parenthetically, we must state that there is a fourth classification, but that,
we will discuss later.)
First, the materialist.
The greatest fear of the materialist, it would seem, is the fear of annihilation,
of non-being, of ceasing to exist. It is almost impossible for the mind of man
to conceive of becoming a nothingness, like the flame of a candle extinguished
by the wind of death. It is a terrifying thought, indeed.
Of what use, then,
are all our cares and struggles? What incentive do we have for character development?
For altruism? For goodness of any kind? For development of qualities, skills,
arts, if this mind and intellect are to be cast on the rubbish heap to perish
with the expendable physical body? If the poet who wrote, ". . . the paths of
glory end but in the grave ..." believed that, of what purpose was his poetic
gift? Certainly this would be a great cause for fear: a life of purposelessness,
a life of futility.
Second, the fundamental
religionist, who believes in the immortality of the human soul and conceives
of an eternity of bliss or torment. Does he have fear? I say he does; that his
greatest fear is the fear of eternal punishment. Not withstanding the fact that
his religion sets forth rules and regulations telling him how to avoid it, that
fear often persists. I once knew a man, a very devoted, religious man, who spent
his whole life trying to live and to teach his religion, who used to say on
numerous occasions, "My greatest fear is that when I have done all I can, it
still won't be enough- that I may yet somehow fail." The fear was still there!
Then third, there
is the agnostic who doesn't know; he is afraid of that very unknown, like a
child who is afraid of the dark, without rhyme or reason.
Common to any or
all of these schools of thought there is a fourth basic fear of death: that
of separation from those we love-those to whom we have anchored our affections.
The fifth great fear
of death seems to be tied up with the fear of being hurt, the fear of pain,
especially if one has been present at a death bed where there has appeared to
be a great struggle before the end. These, it seems to me, summarize the most
widespread fears which plague men's minds, and all the more so because they
are not such subjects as one usually talks about,
Now let us examine
how a knowledge of certain philosophical (or theosophical) concepts can affect
these so common fears of mankind. I am going to make a statement which I believe
with all my heart to be true, and then endeavor to show you how and why. This
is the statement: A thorough understanding of certain concepts of Theosophy,
the Ancient Wisdom, can eliminate all the fears we have just enumerated. That
is a very big and sweeping statement. Let us examine it for a moment, Let us
take our category, one by one.
1. The fear of ceasing
to exist: This viewpoint is impossible to hold when once one understands and
knows the continuity of consciousness- that death is but an incident, an often
recurring incident, in an endless life; a life which is an evolvement, an unlocking
and an unfolding of man's latent divinity.
There is an old story
of a missionary who was seeking to convert a Saxon king to his religion. As
he talked with the monarch in the vast hail of his ancient castle, a small bird
flew in through an open window out of the darkness, circled the lighted room,
then flew out through the opposite window into the darkness again. "Your Majesty,"
said the missionary, "that is a perfect example of what I have been saying to
you. The life of man is like that bird. From the darkness of birth he comes
into the light of earth for a brief span and then disappears again into the
darkness of death, but always he is on the wing!"
Theosophy holds a
concept of eternity, not only as that which has no imaginable ending, but also
as that which has no conceivable beginn ing; that which was, which is, and evermore
shall be. It holds that the soul of man is immortal and that its growth and
splendor know no limit. As one of our writers has phrased it, "We are verbs,
not nouns, for always we are on the wing."
This has been beautifully
stated in Sir Edwin Arnold's immortal poem, The Song Celestial, in these words:
"Never the Spirit
was born;
The Spirit shall cease to be, never!
Never the time it was not;
End and beginning are dreams!
Birthless and changeless and deathless
Abideth the Spirit forever;
Death shall not touch it at all,
Dead though the house of it seems."
No, there is no fear
of ceasing to be, with this philosophy.
2, Let us examine
our second fear, promulgated by many earnest, religious teachers: Eternal reward
in heaven or eternal punishment in hell after death. Does Theosophy teach there
is a heaven and a hell? Oh, yes, but not as places, rather as states of consciousness;
and not as eternal, but only so long as they are necessary in the continuing
plan of man's evolution, Nothing is forever, save the One Life of God. Everything
moves, changes, evolves, with the great Divine Rhythm of Being.
The tragedy of the
doctrine of eternal damnation stems, according to this viewpoint, from a mistaken
idea of Deity: a vindictive Deity. The concept of eternal hell as punishment,
from which there is no recourse, no escape, instigated, supposedly, by a God
of love, by a Father who loves His children and is interested in their development
to divine maturity, such a concept is utterly unthinkable to the rational mind.
To attribute such deliberate cruelty to a mortal parent would brand him as a
monster of sadism. Then how dare we think of Deity in such terms?
Eternal punishment?
No! Punishment at all, (if by punishment is meant a penalty imposed upon one
from the outside), is outside the realm of theosophical philosophy. Instead,
we hold the concept of the working out of natural law; the same universal law
which holds the planets in their orbits and regulates the marvelously intricate
mechanisms of the universe: the inevitable consequences which follow every deed-
the impersonal, inexorable and implacable reaction which follows every action.
Man creates his own
heavens and his own hells! By his actions he makes them and by his actions he
dissolves them. If a ball is bounced against a wall, the force of the rebound
will be in direct proportion to the energy expended in the original pitch. Action-reaction:
this is the basic law of nature.
If I put my hand
into the fire, I am burned. If I jump off the roof, I fall and I am hurt. No
one is punishing me: it is strictly between me and the roof-between me and the
fire. The Law is there and cannot be by-passed. One could multiply examples
endlessly. The same is true in the realm of the emotions, the mind and the spirit.
There is but one Law.
The Biblical injunction
"Cast thy bread upon the waters for it shall return to thee after many days'
is a statement of great wisdom, showing an understanding of this basic law of
the universe. We are all bread-casters. 'What we send out from us returns to
us inevitably, even though it may take "many days" or many years, or even many
lives. "For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."
How does this concept
eliminate the fear of punishment? First, because once really understood, it
revolutionizes our behavior. Once he understands the law, the intelligent man
cooperates. Then, when the hells of our own making do come to us, we know they
are deserved; we know they are for our learning and our growth; and we further
know that when we have learned that lesson, that particular hell will end! One
can go, unafraid, through the darkest tunnel if he sees a glimmer of light at
the end.
3. So much, for
the moment, on the fear of punishment. Now for our third fear: the fear of the
unknown. Psychologists tell us it is always the unknown and the inexplicable
that cause fear. A sudden noise startles us in the darkness of the night . .
. our hearts leap in fear. Is someone entering the house? A thousand conjectures
flash across our minds. Our bodies grow rigid; our hearts beat faster; if we
only knew . . . but not knowing, we are afraid. The explanation may be very
simple: perhaps the wind blew a door shut; but as long as we do not know, we
are afraid. Only one thing can banish the fear: knowledge!
So with the fear
of the unknown after death; Theosophy brings knowledge with which to dispel
it. The unknown may become the known - at least, to a certain degree. Now, how
can anyone know anything about the after death state? Knowledge may come through
several avenues.
We have the testimony
of numbers of people whose latent, divine powers have been sufficiently developed
for them to see, with clearer eyes, through the veil that separates our physical
existence from that of the subtle or spiritual states, Clairvoyant (clear-seeing)
investigators have shared with us a vast amount of detail concerning the after-death
states of human consciousness, There is available a wealth of literature on
the subject for those who are interested in pursuing it further.
I would like to recommend
a splendid and most thought-provoking book The imprisoned Splendor by Dr. Raynor
C. Johnson, of Queen's College University in Melbourne, Australia, a distinguished
physicist. The book is described as "An approach to reality based upon the significance
of data drawn from the fields of natural science, psychical research and mystical
experience." Impressively and clearly he, as a scientist, in a thoroughly scientific
manner, expounds much of the knowledge which has come to mankind concerning
survival after death gleaned in these three fields.
Schopenhauer once
said, "The man who denies the fact of clairvoyance is not entitled to be called
a skeptic, he is merely ignorant."
Theosophy advances
the idea that man can know by direct experience if he is willing to subject
himself to the training necessary to be able to contact the truth which is within
him. This is by no means a new idea, It has been advanced for ages by the sages,
the seers and the mystics.
One of the most beautiful
statements of this age old truth is found in Robert Browning's "Paracelsus."
It is upon one phrase of this famous poem that Dr. Johnson based the title of
his book The Imprisoned Splendor.
'~Truth is within
ourselves;
it takes no rise from outward things,
whate'er you may believe.
There is an inmost center in us all
Where truth abides in fullness; and around,
Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in..
This perfect, clear perception . . . which is truth.
.. and to know
Rather consists in opening out a way.
Whence the Imprisoned Splendor may escape,
Than in effecting entry for a light
Supposed to be without."
Fear of the unknown
is dispelled through knowledge, and the source of that knowledge is within ourselves!
4. Now let us examine
the fear of being separated from those we love, Theosophy teaches that the ties
of human affection stem from the One Divine Love which has its roots in eternity.
Therefore, real love, which is spiritual, is immortal and is the greatest force
for bringing and keeping together those souls who feel such love. Not only do
we learn that those who love are together after death, but, to quote H. P. Blavatsky,
"Spiritual, holy love is immortal, and the law of karma brings, sooner or later,
all those who loved each other with such spiritual affection to incarnate once
more in the same family group." The force of spiritual love is very real.
We learn that deep
and sudden loves are usually not new, but the renewal of loves from past lives;
that love finds expression through diverse relationships in various lives: parent
and child, brother and sister, husband and wife, friend and friend, etc. There
can be no fear of separation when this view is held.
5. What about the
fear of pain? Of being hurt? Does it hurt to die? Clairvoyant investigators
say, "No." "The so-called death agony is largely unconscious muscular reaction,"
says Bishop Hampton in his book Transition. "It is as natural to die as to be
born. The new born child kicks, struggles and cries by muscular reaction, not
because he is in pain." Hampton further says, "Pain comes only through resistance
to transition. When one relaxes and lets go, it it pleasant and peaceful, like
falling asleep. The accumulating carbon dioxide in the body acts as an anaesthetic,
gradually producing unconsciousness."
In the moment before
death, the dying person is granted a glimpse of his past life, a panorama of
its events and their significance, so that the soul knows what it has garnered
for its storehouse from that particular incarnation. Often there is great joy,
glimpses of loved ones gone before, light and beauty. No, it does not hurt to
die when one knows that the body is not the Self.
William Cullen Bryant
in "Thanatopsis" describes the death without fear which is the happy fate of
the man who knows:
That I may go,
Not like the quarry slave at night
Scourged to his dungeon,
But sustained and soothed by an unfaltering trust,
Approach my grave as one who wraps
The draperies of his couch about him
And lies down to pleasant dreams."
We have briefly
explored the idea that many of men's fears cluster around the subject of death;
but there is another potent area for the same emotion which may be grouped around
the general theme of fear of life.
On the surface,
this may not seem to mean much, but when we consider life as the sum total of
all of the experiences which come to a human being between birth and death,
we realize that fear crouches in unexpected corners, ready to pounce upon our
minds at the least provocation.
1. The whole vast
business of insurance has been, in a manner of speaking, built upon one of these
basic fears: the fear of want- of losing our material possessions. We insure
our prop-city against fire, windstorm and theft. We insure our cars against
being damaged by others or by our own carelessness. We insure our persons against
accidents, illness, loss of employment, and even loss of life!
We worry about losing
jobs, being involved in accidents, becoming ill and dependent, all of which
would result in loss of financial security. We fear and we worry even in the
midst of plenty. We fear because of our attitude toward our possessions.
There was a good
story in the paper recently which illustrates this point. It was told as a joke,
but there is also a vein of seriousness in it which we might think about. A
real estate salesman was showing a house to a prospective buyer. He pointed
out all the good features, but the buyer kept shaking his head. Finally the
salesman said, "What is there about it that you do not like? Perhaps it could
be altered." "I'm afraid not," responded the client. "It just won't do at all.
You see, it doesn't have a room where I can store all the things I have that
I don't need!"
Kahlil Gibran in
The Prophet, says:
"And what are your
possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow?
And what is the fear of need, but need itself? Is not the dread of thirst when
your well is full the thirst which is unquenchable ?" Mankind has that unquenchable
thirst!
2. Then there is
the fear of failure which manifests in many and devious forms; a fear which
keeps us from realizing the best within us, The fear of not finding one's true
work; of not having time to accomplish our aims; the fear of not measuring up
to others in an age of keen competition; of being compared unfavorably with
others: of criticism- what other people will say or think! These are hampering,
of course, to positive, constructive action.
3- Then there is
the awful fear of loneliness, of being alone, of growing old, of not being loved
and appreciated; and with some, even of being bored because they can find no
new frontiers to explore.
How can our wisdom
banish fears like these? We submit that the whole area of fear of want, of loss,
of becoming less, stems from the non-realization of the Oneness of Life. This
is a basic tenet, the thesis, really, of our philosophy; All life is One Life;
nothing can exist outside that One Life, which is at the same time the Life
of God, the life of man and the life of all nature.
Great Teachers through
the ages have known and taught this truth. St. Paul said, "In Him (God)
we live and move and have our being". Jesus stated, "I and my Father
are one". Lao Tse, the sage of ancient China, uttered these words, "If
thou dost know that others are thyself, whom cans't thou hate?" Sri Krishna,
the Hindu Christ, said in the Bhagavad Gita, "Having pervaded this universe
with one fragment of Myself, I remain", Ouspensky, a more modern philosopher,
in his Tertium Organum puts it this way: "Deity is the infinite in nature;
the soul, is the infinite in man. Since there cannot be two infinities, they
must be one and the same".
With this concept,
comes the understanding that we have everything we need, that life progresses
always from less to more, and that all power lies, potentially, within us.
Possessions for their
own sake, then, lose their paramount appeal, become part of the illusion, the
maya of material existence, and man knows himself to be spirit.
This does not mean
that the spiritually minded man can have no possessions, but only that he learns
to regard possessions in their true light and so to be happy with either loss
or gain. Because he understood this, St. Paul could make the statement with
perfect honesty, "For I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to
be content." There you have it: happy in prosperity, happy in adversity; this
can be the fate of those who have learned to discriminate between the unreal
and the real.
Knowledge of the
great law, the law of Karma, (cause and effect) gives us a rational basis for
this attitude. The law always moves for our ultimate good through many so-called
adversities. Through illness, for instance, many a person's whole outlook on
life has been altered, led into the paths of spirit, for the hardest impacts
make the greatest impressions. We learn to welcome whatever comes and call it
good.
This does not mean
that we should not try to better conditions of health, of finances or of environment,
but (and here is the crux of the matter) we are not fearful and unhappy while
we are doing so; we put the emphasis on the effort rather than on the tangible
and visible results. We learn to perceive that the real results lie in the improvement
of faculty and character which comes to us through the effort expended. It has
been truly said, "We never have too little and we never have too much,"
With the knowledge
of the Oneness of Life, of man's latent and potential divine powers, and of
the great universal law that guides man's evolution toward conscious union with
the Divine, the fear of loss, in all its devious forms, disap-pears, for the
Law always moves from less to more!
Now we come to consider
the fear of failure, What about that bogie? He who comprehends the Ancient Wisdom
has no fear of failure, for his philosophy is that all are destined to succeed;
that "the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong" in the true
sense of the word, for the hidden Divine Life in all cannot be eradicated nor
destroyed and will at last lead each one to the fulfillment of life's purpose.
God cannot fail!
This philosophy brings
the conclusion that there is really no such thing as a mistake; there are only
experiences. Also it makes this statement understandable: "No man is my friend
and no man is my enemy; all alike are my teachers." There are no failures; only
experiences, and the more experiences we have, the faster we progress toward
the goal of human perfection.
There is a beautiful
statement concerning this idea in a small book of unnamed authorship which I
treasure, called The Way of the Servant. I'd like to share it with you:
"Seek not therefore
to escape experience; to flee temptation will not overcome it. Shut not thyself
from the impure and the vile. To fear contamination will but bring it near to
thee. And if thou cans't not walk unsullied and untouched, temptation and a
fall will bear thee greater fruit than the hedging of thyself from such experience.
For my strength is born of suffering and my peace of motion and unrest."
Why be afraid of
what other people think? Of what other people say about us? We do not have to
measure up to any one else's standard -only to our own- only to keep our own
spiritual water level rising higher and higher. We will want the other fellow
to succeed and progress and to have all of the good things we ourselves have
or want to have, for the so called other fellow is ourself, the same wine of
the spirit poured into another vessel. The only criticism, then, with which
we will be concerned is self-criticism which we will try to apply daily to our
own actions.
We will have found
our true work, which is the growth of the soul through experience, and the forms
of the outward occupations of daily life will become relatively unimportant;
they will be looked upon merely as stepping stones or as tools to use in our
real work.
Fear of not having
time will disappear as we exchange our concept of living in time for that of
living in eternity. We will learn to see this "three score years and ten" of
man's so-called allotted life as one day in school, so to speak, in a whole
educational process. We are not afraid because we cannot learn all things in
one day. We are satisfied if we have used that one day to the best of our ability,
based upon the learnings of all the previous days, and laying the groundwork
for higher learnings tomorrow in a more advanced class.
3. Our third major
fear of life we have designated as the fear of loneliness. How could one ever
be lonely, knowing himself to be a part of all the teeming life of the universe,
not only of his fellow men but also of the lower kingdoms of nature, even the
"inanimate" things?
Sensing and feeling
oneself a part of the infinite Life of God, whether manifested in a Great Teacher
or~ in the man across the street, in the eyes of a pet dog or the trill of a
bird, in the rustle of wind in the leaves or the silent cry of a sunset, the
Biblical injunction takes on new meaning: "Be still and know that I am God."
There is no loneliness
in such a life, whether lived in the midst of a bustling urban community or
in the silence of a hidden retreat, for all of life is within each of us; we
have but to call it forth; all love, all beauty is ours for the using when we
know! Know that "I am that Life in all."
We can never be without
love, without appreciation, for each small effort on our part is seen and "appreciated"
by the great law, and it will repay us in kind. But we will not be looking for
payment! We will stop thinking about being loved and appreciated and concentrate
on loving and appreciating! Loving will be the important thing, not being loved;
giving, not receiving, for it is the giving that makes for our greatest growth.
It is the giving that banishes the fear! As Gibran says, "Those who give all
are the believers in life and their coffer is never empty..".
With this philosophy,
one could never be bored with life; it would be unthinkable. There is an adventure
around every corner, in each daily experience. There is a miracle of beauty
and wonder in each common thing. One has only to concentrate upon it, meditate
upon it, go deep within it to find the center and core of all life, and in every
case it will be the same, no matter from what portion of the periphery we start.
The art of meditation, of penetrating deep into the heart of every idea is a
most exquisitely satisfying and fruitful experience.
What about the fear
of growing old? We do fear it, you know. We use all the artifices we can find
or invent to keep ourselves looking younger. We dislike to tell our age as if
it were something shameful. There is no such thing as age when one is living
in eternity! The number of years spent in one physical body means very little,
for with the knowledge of the continuity of life in a succession of ever higher
and higher forms, one always gains more than he loses, exchanging the old for
the new.
The poets on many
occasions have put this idea into such beautiful words, for the poets are oftimes
the heralds of truth long before the duller minds of the common folk grasp the
ideas. I would like to share with you two or three notable examples:
From The Bhagavad
Gita:
"Nay, but as when
one layeth
His worn out robes away,
And, taking new ones, sayeth,
'These will I wear today',
So putteth by the spirit
Lightly its garb of flesh,
And passeth to inherit
A residence afresh!"
From "My Creed" by
John Masefield:
"I hold that when
a person dies, his soul returns again to earth;
Arrayed in some new flesh disguise, another mother gives him birth;
With steadier step and brighter brain, the old soul takes the road again."
From "The Chambered
Nautilus" by Oliver Wendell Holmes:
"Build thee more
stately mansions, 0, my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou, at length, art free . .
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's Unresting sea."
Does all this seem
too idealistic, too unreal? There is only one way to prove or disprove its reality
and that way is to try it! No one else's knowledge is of any value to us unless
we can make it our own. An idea is only a working hypothesis, a spring board,
a place from which to launch forth. We urge no one to live by another's ideas,
to believe anything because someone says so or because it is written in a book
(even a book accounted sacred); we do urge that one be open minded to new and
fresh concepts, to meditate upon their value, and if, after thought and contemplation,
they seem to your own mind and intuition to contain some germ of truth, then
to prove their worth to you by putting them to work in your own lives.
To sum up, now, briefly,
the ideas presented for your consideration, we repeat:
1. The lives of many
are hampered and hindered by fears.
First, are fears
concerning death, Chief among these are:
a. Fear of ceasing to exist
b. Fear of punishment after death
c. Fear of the unknown
d. Fear of separation from loved ones
e. Fear of pain
Second are the fears
concerning life:
a. Fear of want
b. Fear of failure
c. Fear of loneliness
2. All these fears
are irrational and unnecessary and may be eliminated from our lives by a working
knowledge of certain basic truths. We conceive these truths to be:
a. The Oneness of
all life;
b. The universality of the law of nature, cause and effect, "karma";
c. The continuity
of consciousness, moving always from less to more in the fulfillment of the
law.
In the Christian
Bible, the statement is made: "There is no fear in love. Perfect love casteth
out fear because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love."
Fear and perfection
are thus said to be inimical; we cannot have both. Each man makes his own choice.
We can do for ourselves from the inside what the psychiatrists are trying to
do from the outside!
Scientists tell us
that in the center of every hurricane there is a small area of perfect calm
called "the eye." It is possible for an aviator to fly within this center in
perfect safety, unafraid, unharmed by the raging storm by which he is surrounded.
In like manner there is, in the center of Being deep within each of us, an area
of perfect calm, perfect safety, where each may pilot the craft of his life
unafraid and unharmed by the turmoil and confusion, the fears and anxieties
of the outer world. To help each of us to find his own "inner eye," his own
center of calm, and so be enabled to ride out the storm in safety, THEOSOPHY
Exits.
first printing in
1958 with a 2nd printing in 1965 by the Theosophical Society of America )
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