Theosophy - Is theosophy a religion - by H.P.Blavatsky
IS
THEOSOPHY A RELIGION?
by H. P. Blavatsky
from Lucifer [magazine] Volume 3, November 1888
published by The Theosophical Society, Adyar: Chennai(Madras), India 600 020
"Religion is the
best armour that man can have, but it is the worst cloak."
Bunyan
|
IT is no exaggeration
to say that there never was - during the present century,
at any rate - a movement, social or religious, so terribly,
nay, so absurdly misunderstood, or more blundered about than
THEOSOPHY - whether regarded theoretically
as a code of ethics, or practically, in its objective expression,
i.e., the Society known by that name.
Defending Theosophy
Year after year, and day after day had our officers and members
to interrupt people speaking of the Theosophical movement
by putting in more or less emphatic protests against theosophy
being referred to as a "religion," and the Theosophical Society
as a kind of church or religious body. Still worse, it is
as often spoken of as a "new sect"! Is it a stubborn prejudice,
an error, or both? The latter, most likely. The most narrow-minded
and even notoriously unfair people are still in need of a
plausible pretext, of a peg on which to hang their little
uncharitable remarks and innocently-uttered slanders. And
what peg is more solid for that purpose, more convenient
than an "ism" or a "sect." The great majority would be very
sorry to be disabused and finally forced to accept the fact
that Theosophy is neither. The name suits them, and they
pretend to be unaware of its falseness. But there are others,
also, many more or less friendly people, who labour sincerely
under the same delusion. To these, we say: Surely the world
has been hitherto sufficiently cursed with the intellectual
extinguishers known as dogmatic creeds, without having inflicted
upon it a new form of faith! Too many already wear their
faith, truly, as Shakespeare puts it, "but as the fashion
of his hat," ever changing "with the next block." Moreover,
the very raison d'être of The Theosophical
Society was, from its beginning, to utter a loud protest
and lead an open warfare against dogma or any belief based
upon blind faith.
It may sound odd and paradoxical, but it is true to say that,
hitherto, the most apt workers in practical Theosophy, its
most devoted members were those recruited from the ranks
of agnostics and even of materialists. No genuine, no sincere
searcher after truth can ever be found among the blind believers
in the "Divine Word," let the latter be claimed
to come from Allah, Brahma or Jehovah, or their respective
Kuran, Purana and Bible. For:
Faith is not reason's labour,
but repose.
He who believes
his own religion on faith, will regard that of every other man as a lie,
and
hate it on that same faith. Moreover, unless it fetters reason
and entirely blinds our perceptions of anything outside our
own particular faith, the latter is no faith at all, but
a temporary belief, the delusion we labour under, at some
particular time of life. Moreover, "faith without principles
is but a flattering phrase for wilful positiveness or fanatical
bodily sensations," in Coleridge's clever definition.
Not a Religion - But Religion
What, then, is Theosophy, and how may it be defined
in its latest presentation in this closing portion of the
nineteenth century?
Theosophy, we say, is not a Religion.
Yet there are, as
everyone knows, certain beliefs, philosophical, religious and scientific,
which have become
so closely associated in recent years with the word "Theosophy" that they
have come to be taken by the general public for Theosophy itself. Moreover,
we shall be told these beliefs
have been put forward, explained and defended by those very
Founders who have declared that Theosophy is not a
Religion. What is then the explanation of this apparent
contradiction? How can a certain body of beliefs and
teachings, an elaborate doctrine, in fact, be labelled "Theosophy"
and be tacitly accepted as "Theosophical" by nine-tenths
of the members of the T.S., if Theosophy is not a Religion?
- we are asked.
To explain this is the purpose of the present
protest.
It is perhaps necessary,
first of all, to say, that the assertion that "Theosophy is not a Religion,"
by no means excludes the fact that "Theosophy is Religion" itself.
A Religion in the true and only correct sense, is a bond uniting men together--not
a particular set of dogmas
and beliefs. Now Religion, per se, in its widest meaning
is that which binds not only all MEN,
but also all BEINGS and all
things in the entire Universe into one grand whole.
This is our theosophical definition of religion; but the
same definition changes again with every creed and country,
and no two Christians even regard it alike. We find this
in more than one eminent author. Thus Carlyle defined the
Protestant Religion in his day, with a remarkable prophetic
eye to this ever-growing feeling in our present day, as:
For the most part a wise, prudential feeling,
grounded on mere calculation; a matter, as all others
now are, of expediency and utility; whereby some smaller
quantum of earthly enjoyment may be exchanged
for a far larger quantum of celestial enjoyment.
Thus religion, too, is profit, a working for wages;
not reverence, but vulgar hope or fear.
In her turn Mrs. Stowe, whether consciously or
otherwise, seemed to have had Roman Catholicism rather than
Protestantism in her mind, when saying of her heroine that:
Religion she looked upon in the light of a ticket
(with the correct number of indulgences bought and paid
for), which, being once purchased and snugly laid away
in a pocket-book, is to be produced at the celestial
gate, and thus secure admission to heaven. . . .
Universal Brotherhood
But to Theosophists
(the genuine Theosophists are here meant) who accept no mediation by proxy,
no salvation
through innocent bloodshed, nor would they think of "working
for wages" in the One Universal religion, the only
definition they could subscribe to and accept in full is
one given by Miller. How truly and theosophically he describes
it, by showing that
. . . true Religion
Is always mild, propitious and humble;
Plays not the tyrant, plants no faith in blood,
Nor bears destruction on her chariot wheels;
But stoops to polish, succour and redress,
And builds her grandeur on the public good.
The above is a correct definition of what true
theosophy is, or ought to be. (Among the creeds Buddhism
alone is such a true heart-binding and men-binding philosophy,
because it is not a dogmatic religion. ) In this respect,
as it is the duty and task of every genuine theosophist to
accept and carry out these principles, Theosophy is RELIGION,
and the Society its one Universal Church; the temple
of Solomon's wisdom, [Whose 700 wives and
300 concubines, by the bye, are merely the personations of
man's attributes, feelings, passions and his various occult
powers: the Kabalistic numbers 7 and 3 showing it plainly.
Solomon himself, moreover, being, simply, the emblem of SOL--the "Solar Initiate" or the Christ-Sun, is a variant of the Indian
"Vikarttana" (the Sun) shorn of his beams by Viswakarma,
his Hierophant-Initiator, who thus shears the Chrestos
candidate for initiation of his golden radiance and crowns
him with a dark, blackened aureole--the "crown of thorns."
(See the "Secret Doctrine" for full explanation.) Solomon
was never a living man. As described in Kings, his
life and works are an allegory on the trials and glory of
Initiation.] in building which "there was
neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron heard
in the house while it was building" (I Kings, vi.7); for
this "temple" is made by no human hand, nor built in any
locality on earth--but, verily, is raised only in the inner
sanctuary of man's heart wherein reigns alone the awakened
soul.
Thus Theosophy is not a Religion, we say,
but RELIGION itself, the one bond of
unity, which is so universal and all-embracing that no man,
as no speck - from gods and mortals down to animals, the
blade of grass and atom--can be outside of its light. Therefore,
any organization or body of that name must necessarily be
a UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD.
Universal Ethic and Panacea
Were it otherwise,
Theosophy would be but a word added to hundreds other such words as high
sounding as they
are pretentious and empty. Viewed as a philosophy, Theosophy
in its practical work is the alembic of the Mediæval
alchemist. It transmutes the apparently base metal of every
ritualistic and dogmatic creed (Christianity included) into
the gold of fact and truth, and thus truly produces a universal
panacea for the ills of mankind. This is why, when applying
for admission into the Theosophical Society, no one is asked
what religion he belongs to, nor what his deistic views may
be. These views are his own personal property and have nought
to do with the Society. Because Theosophy can be practiced
by Christian or Heathen, Jew or Gentile, by Agnostic or Materialist,
or even an Atheist, provided that none of these is a bigoted
fanatic, who refuses to recognize as his brother any man
or woman outside his own special creed or belief. Count Leo
N. Tolstoy does not believe in the Bible, the Church, or
the divinity of Christ; and yet no Christian surpasses him
in the practical bearing out of the principles alleged to
have been preached on the Mount. And these principles are
those of Theosophy; not because they were uttered by the
Christian Christ, but because they are universal ethics,
and were preached by Buddha and Confucius, Krishna, and all
the great Sages, thousands of years before the Sermon on
the Mount was written. Hence, once that we live up to such
theosophy, it becomes a universal panacea indeed,
for it heals the wounds inflicted by the gross asperities
of the Church "isms" on the sensitive soul of every naturally
religious man. How many of these, forcibly thrust out by
the reactive impulse of disappointment from the narrow area
of blind belief into the ranks of arid disbelief, have been
brought back to hopeful aspiration by simply joining our
Brotherhood - yea, imperfect as it is.
If, as an offset to this, we are reminded that
several prominent members have left the Society disappointed
in theosophy as they had been in other associations, this
cannot dismay us in the least. For with a very, very few
exceptions, in the early stage of the T.S.'s activities
when some left because they did not find mysticism practiced
in the General Body as they understood it, or because "the leaders lacked Spirituality," were "untheosophical,
hence, untrue to the rules," you see, the majority left because
most of them were either half-hearted or too self-opinionated
- a church and infallible dogma in themselves. Some broke
away, again under very shallow pretexts indeed, such, for
instance, as "because Christianity (to say Churchianity,
or sham Christianity, would be more just) was too
roughly handled in our magazines"--just as if other fanatical
religions were ever treated any better or upheld! Thus, all
those who left have done well to leave, and have never been
regretted.
New Vistas
Furthermore, there is this also to be added:
the number of those who left can hardly be compared with
the number of those who found everything they had hoped for
in Theosophy. Its doctrines, if seriously studied, call forth,
by stimulating one's reasoning powers and awakening the inner
in the animal man, every hitherto dormant power for good
in us, and also the perception of the true and the real,
as opposed to the false and the unreal. Tearing off with
no uncertain hand the thick veil of dead-letter with which
every old religious scriptures were cloaked, scientific Theosophy,
learned in the cunning symbolism of the ages, reveals to
the scoffer at old wisdom the origin of the world's faiths
and sciences. It opens new vistas beyond the old horizons
of crystallized, motionless and despotic faiths; and turning
blind belief into a reasoned knowledge founded on mathematical
laws--the only exact science--it demonstrates to him
under profounder and more philosophical aspects the existence
of that which, repelled by the grossness of its dead-letter
form, he had long since abandoned as a nursery tale. It gives
a clear and well-defined object, an ideal to live for, to
every sincere man or woman belonging to whatever station
in Society and of whatever culture and degree of intellect.
Practical Theosophy is not one Science, but embraces
every science in life, moral and physical. It may, in short,
be justly regarded as the universal "coach," a tutor of world-wide
knowledge and experience, and of an erudition which not only
assists and guides his pupils toward a successful examination
for every scientific or moral service in earthly life, but
fits them for the lives to come, if those pupils will
only study the universe and its mysteries within themselves,
instead of studying them through the spectacles of orthodox
science and religions.
Theosophy Is Perfect - Not Theosophists
And let no reader misunderstand these statements.
It is Theosophy per se, not any individual member
of the Society or even Theosophist, on whose behalf such
a universal omniscience is claimed. The two - Theosophy and
the Theosophical Society - as a vessel and the olla podrida
it contains, must not be confounded. One is, as an ideal,
divine Wisdom, perfection itself; the other a poor,
imperfect thing, trying to run under, if not within, its shadow
on Earth. No man is perfect; why, then, should any member of the T.S. be
expected to be a paragon of every
human virtue? And why should the whole organization be criticized
and blamed for the faults, whether real or imaginary, of
some of its "Fellows," or even its Leaders? Never was the
Society, as a concrete body, free from blame or sin - errare
humanum est - nor were any of its members. Hence,
it is rather those members most of whom will not be led by
Theosophy, that ought to be blamed. Theosophy is the soul
of its Society; the latter the gross and imperfect body of
the former. Hence, those modern Solomons who will sit in the Judgment
Seat and talk of that they know nothing about, are invited before they slander
Theosophy or any Theosophists
to first get acquainted with both, instead of ignorantly
calling one a "farrago of insane beliefs" and the other a
"sect of impostors and lunatics."
The Source of Religions
Regardless of this, Theosophy is spoken of by
friends and foes as a religion when not a sect. Let
us see how the special beliefs which have become associated
with the word have come to stand in that position, and how
it is that they have so good a right to it that none of the
leaders of the Society have ever thought of disavowing their
doctrines.
We have said that we believed in the absolute
unity of nature. Unity implies the possibility for a unit
on one plane, to come into contact with another unit on or
from another plane. We believe in it.
The just published Secret Doctrine will
show what were the ideas of all antiquity with regard to
the primeval instructors of primitive man and his
three earlier races. The genesis of that WISDOM-RELIGION in
which all Theosophists believe, dates from that period. So-called "Occultism," or rather Esoteric Science, has to
be traced in its origin to those Beings who, led by Karma,
have incarnated in our humanity, and thus struck the key-note
of that secret Science which countless generations of subsequent
adepts have expanded since then in every age, while they
checked its doctrines by personal observation and experience.
The bulk of this knowledge - which no man is able to possess
in its fullness--constitutes that which we now call Theosophy
or "divine knowledge." Beings from other and higher worlds
may have it entire; we can have it only approximately.
Thus, unity of everything in the universe implies
and justifies our belief in the existence of a knowledge
at once scientific, philosophical and religious, showing
the necessity and actuality of the connection of man and
all things in the universe with each other; which knowledge,
therefore, becomes essentially RELIGION,
and must be called in its integrity and universality by the
distinctive name of WISDOM-RELIGION.
It is from this WISDOM-RELIGION that
all the various individual "Religions" (erroneously
so called) have sprung, forming in their turn offshoots and
branches, and also all the minor creeds, based upon and always
originated through some personal experience in psychology.
Every such religion, or religious offshoot, be it considered
orthodox or heretical, wise or foolish, started originally
as a clear and unadulterated stream from the Mother-Source.
The fact that each became in time polluted with purely human
speculations and even inventions, due to interested motives,
does not prevent any from having been pure in its early beginnings.
There are those creeds --we shall not call them religions--which
have now been overlaid with the human element out of all
recognition; others just showing signs of early decay; not
one that escaped the hand of time. But each and all are of
divine, because natural and true origin; aye-- Mazdeism,
Brahmanism, Buddhism as much as Christianity. It is the dogmas
and human element in the latter which led directly to modern
Spiritualism.
A Word on Spiritualism
Of course, there will be an outcry from
both sides, if we say that modern Spiritualism per se,
cleansed of the unhealthy speculations which were based
on the dicta of two little girls and their very unreliable "Spirits"--is,
nevertheless, far more true and philosophical than any church dogma. Carnalised Spiritualism is
now reaping its Karma. Its primitive innovators, the
said "two little girls" from Rochester, the Mecca of modern
Spiritualism, have grown up and turned into old women since
the first raps produced by them have opened wide ajar the
gates between this and the other world. It is on their "innocent"
testimony that the elaborate scheme of a sidereal Summerland,
with its active astral population of "Spirits," ever on the
wing between their "Silent Land" and our very loud-mouthed,
gossiping earth - has been started and worked out. And now
the two female Mahommeds of Modern Spiritualism have turned
self-apostates and play false to the "philosophy" they have
created, and have gone over to the enemy. They expose and
denounce practical Spiritualism as the humbug of the
ages. Spiritualists - (save a handful of fair exceptions)--have
rejoiced and sided with our enemies and slanderers,
when these, who had never been Theosophists, played
us false and showed the cloven foot denouncing the Founders
of the Theosophical Society as frauds and impostors. Shall
the Theosophists laugh in their turn now that the original "revealers" of Spiritualism have become its "revilers"? Never!
for the phenomena of Spiritualism are facts, and the treachery
of the "Fox girls" only makes us feel new pity for all mediums,
and confirms, before the whole world, our constant declaration
that no medium can be relied upon. No true Theosophist will
ever laugh, or far less rejoice, at the discomfiture even
of an opponent. The reason for it is simple:--
Because we know that beings from other, higher
worlds do confabulate with some elect mortals now as ever;
though now far more rarely than in the days of
old, as mankind becomes with every civilized generation worse
in every respect.
Perfect Teachers and Imperfect Instruments
Theosophy--owing, in truth, to the levée
in arms of all the Spiritualists of Europe and America
at the first words uttered against the idea that every communicating
intelligence is necessarily the Spirit of some
ex-mortal from this earth--has not said its last word about
Spiritualism and "Spirits." It may one day. Meanwhile, an
humble servant of Theosophy, the Editor, declares once more
her belief in Beings, grander, wiser, nobler than any personal
God, who are beyond any "Spirits of the dead," Saints,
or winged Angels, who, nevertheless, do condescend
in all and every age to occasionally overshadow rare sensitives
- often entirely unconnected with Church, Spiritualism or
even Theosophy. And believing in high and holy Spiritual
Beings, she must also believe in the existence of their opposites
- lower "spirits," good, bad and indifferent. Therefore does
she believe in spiritualism and its phenomena, some of which
are so repugnant to her.
This, as a casual remark and a digression, just
to show that Theosophy includes Spiritualism - as it should
be, not as it is - among its sciences, based on knowledge
and the experience of countless ages. There is not a religion
worthy of the name which has been started otherwise than
in consequence of such visits from Beings on the higher
planes.
Thus were born all
prehistoric, as well as all the historic religions, Mazdeism and Brahmanism,
Buddhism
and Christianity, Judaism, Gnosticism and Mahomedanism; in
short every more or less successful "ism." All are true at
the bottom, and all are false on their surface. The Revealer,
the artist who impressed a portion of the Truth on the brain
of the Seer, was in every instance a true artist, who gave
out genuine truths; but the instrument proved also, in every
instance, to be only a man. Invite Rubenstein and
ask him to play a sonata of Beethoven on a piano left to
self-tuning, one-half of the keys of which are in
chronic paralysis, while the wires hang loose; then see whether,
the genius of the artist notwithstanding, you will be able
to recognize the sonata. The moral of the fabula is that
a man - let him be the greatest of mediums or natural Seers
- is but a man; and man left to his own devices and speculations
must be out of tune with absolute truth, while even
picking up some of its crumbs. For Man is but a fallen
Angel, a god within, but having an animal brain in his
head, more subject to cold and wine fumes while in company
with other men on Earth, than to the faultless reception
of divine revelations.
Volunteer Scavenging by Early Theosophists
Hence the multi-coloured
dogmas of the churches. Hence also the thousand and one "philosophies" so-called
(some contradictory, Theosophical theories included); and
the variegated "Sciences" and schemes, Spiritual, Mental,
Christian and Secular; Sectarianism and bigotry, and especially
the personal vanity and self-opinionatedness of almost every
"Innovator" since the mediæval ages. These have all
darkened and hidden the very existence of TRUTH
- the common root of all. Will our critics imagine that we
exclude Theosophical teachings from this nomenclature? Not
at all. And though the esoteric doctrines which our Society
has been and is expounding, are not mental or spiritual
impressions from some "unknown, from above," but
the fruit of teachings given to us by living men, still,
except that which was dictated and written out by those Masters
of Wisdom themselves, these doctrines may be in many cases
as incomplete and faulty as any of our foes would desire
it. The Secret Doctrine -a work which gives out
all that can be given out during this century, is an attempt
to lay bare in part the common foundation and inheritance
of all - great and small religious and philosophical schemes.
It was found indispensable to tear away all this mass of
concreted misconceptions and prejudice which now hides the
parent trunk of (a) all the great world-religions;
(b) of the smaller sects; and (c) of Theosophy as it stands
now - however veiled the great Truth, by ourselves and our
limited knowledge. The crust of error is thick, laid on by
whatever hand; and because we personally have tried
to remove some of it, the effort became the standing reproach
against all Theosophical writers and even the Society. Few
among our friends and readers have failed to characterize
our attempt to expose error in the Theosophist and
Lucifer as "very uncharitable attacks on Christianity,"
"untheosophical assaults," etc., etc. Yet these are necessary,
nay, indispensable, if we wish to plough up at least approximate
truths. We have to lay things bare, and are ready to
suffer for it - as usual. It is vain to promise to give
truth, and then leave it mingled with error out of mere
faint-heartedness. That the result of such policy could only
muddy the stream of facts is shown plainly. After twelve
years of incessant labour and struggle with enemies from
the four quarters of the globe, notwithstanding our four
theosophical monthly journals - the Theosophist, Path,
Lucifer, and the French Lotus - our wishy-washy,
tame protests in them, our timid declarations, our "masterly
policy of inactivity," and playing at hide-and-seek in the
shadow of dreary metaphysics, have only led to Theosophy
being seriously regarded as a religious SECT.
For the hundredth time we are told - "What good is Theosophy
doing?" and "See what good the Churches are doing!"
Nevertheless, it is an averred fact that mankind
is not a whit better in morality, and in some respects ten
times worse now, than it ever was in the days of Paganism.
Moreover, for the last half century, from that period when
Freethought and Science got the best of the Churches - Christianity
is yearly losing far more adherents among the cultured classes
than it gains proselytes in the lower strata, the
scum of Heathendom. On the other hand, Theosophy has brought
back from Materialism and blank despair to belief (based
on logic and evidence) in man's divine Self, and the
immortality of the latter, more than one of those whom the
Church has lost through dogma, exaction of faith and tyranny.
And, if it is proven that Theosophy saves one man only in
a thousand of those the Church has lost, is not the former
a far higher factor for good than all the missionaries put
together?
Theosophy, as repeatedly declared in print and
viva voce by its members and officers, proceeds on
diametrically opposite lines to those which are trodden by
the Church; and Theosophy rejects the methods of Science,
since her inductive methods can only lead to crass materialism.
Yet, de facto, Theosophy claims to be both "RELIGION" and "SCIENCE," for
Theosophy is the essence of both. It is for the sake and love of the two
divine
abstractions--i.e., Theosophical religion and science,
that its Society has become the volunteer scavenger of
both orthodox religion and modern science; as also the relentless
Nemesis of those who have degraded the two noble truths to
their own ends and purposes, and then divorced each violently
from the other, though the two are and must be one. To
prove this is also one of our objects in the present
paper.
Theosophy Bridges Religion and Science
The modern Materialist
insists on an impassable chasm between the two, pointing out that the "Conflict between
Religion and Science" has ended in the triumph of the latter
and the defeat of the first. The modern Theosophist refuses
to see, on the contrary, any such chasm at all. If it is
claimed by both Church and Science that each of them pursues
the truth and nothing but the truth, then either one
of them is mistaken, and accepts falsehood for truth, or
both. Any other impediment to their reconciliation must be
set down as purely fictitious. Truth is one, even
if sought for or pursued at two different ends. Therefore,
Theosophy claims to reconcile the two foes. It premises by
saying that the true spiritual and primitive Christian
religion is, as much as the other great and still older philosophies
that preceded it - the light of Truth - "the life
and the light of men."
But so is the true light of Science. Therefore,
darkened as the former is now by dogmas examined through
glasses smoked with the superstitions artificially produced
by the Churches, this light can hardly penetrate and meet
its sister ray in a science, equally as cobwebbed by paradoxes
and the materialistic sophistries of the age. The teachings
of the two are incompatible, and cannot agree so long as
both Religious philosophy and the Science of physical and
external (in philosophy, false) nature, insist upon
the infallibility of their respective "will-o'-the wisps." The two lights,
having their beams of equal length in the matter of false deductions, can
but extinguish each other
and produce still worse darkness. Yet, they can be reconciled
on the condition that both shall clean their houses, one
from the human dross of the ages, the other from the hideous
excrescence of modern materialism and atheism. And as both
decline, the most meritorious and best thing to do is precisely
what Theosophy alone can and will do: i.e., point
out to the innocents caught by the glue of the two waylayers
- verily two dragons of old, one devouring the intellects,
the other the souls of men -that their supposed chasm
is but an optical delusion; that, far from being one, it
is but an immense garbage mound respectively erected by the
two foes, as a fortification against mutual attacks.
Thus, if Theosophy does no more than point out
and seriously draw the attention of the world to the fact
that the supposed disagreement between religion and
science is conditioned, on the one hand by the intelligent
materialists rightly kicking against absurd human dogmas,
and on the other by blind fanatics and interested churchmen
who, instead of defending the souls of mankind, fight simply
tooth and nail for their personal bread and butter and authority -
why, even then, Theosophy will prove itself the saviour of mankind.
H.P.Blavatsky and H.S.Olcott (founders
of The Theosophical Society) -Their Work for Theosophy
And now we have shown, it is hoped, what real
Theosophy is, and what are its adherents. One is divine Science
and a code of Ethics so sublime that no Theosophist is capable
of doing it justice; the others weak but sincere men. Why,
then, should Theosophy ever be judged by the personal shortcomings
of any leader or member of our 150 branches? One may work
for it to the best of his ability, yet never raise himself
to the height of his call and aspiration. This is his or
her misfortune, never the fault of Theosophy, or even of
the body at large. Its Founders claim no other merit than
that of having set the first Theosophical wheel rolling.
If judged at all they must be judged by the work they have
done, not by what friends may think or enemies say of them.
There is no room for personalities in a work like
ours; and all must be ready, as the Founders are, if needs
be, for the car of Jaggennath to crush them individually
for the good of all. It is only in the days of
the dim Future, when death will have laid his cold hand on
the luckless Founders and stopped thereby their activity,
that their respective merits and demerits, their good and
bad acts and deeds, and their Theosophical work will have
to be weighed on the Balance of Posterity. Then only, after
the two scales with their contrasted loads have been brought
to an equipoise, and the character of the net result left
over has become evident to all in its full and intrinsic
value, then only shall the nature of the verdict passed be
determined with anything like justice. At present, except
in India, those results are too scattered over the face of
the earth, too much limited to a handful of individuals to
be easily judged. Now, these results can hardly be perceived,
much less heard of amid the din and clamour made by our teeming
enemies, and their ready imitators--the indifferent. Yet
however small, if once proved good, even now every man who
has at heart the moral progress of humanity, owes his thankfulness
to Theosophy for those results. And as Theosophy was revived
and brought before the world, viâ its unworthy
servants, the "Founders," if their work was useful, it alone
must be their vindicator, regardless of the present state
of their balance in the petty cash accounts of Karma, wherein
social "respectabilities" are entered up. |