Theosophy - The Origin of Evil by H.P.Blavatsky
THE
ORIGIN OF EVIL
by H. P. Blavatsky
originally published in Lucifer, October, 1887
and reproduced as an Adyar Pamphlet No. 78 - June 1917
by Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar, Madras, India
THE
problem of the origin of evil can be philosophically approached only if the archaic
Indian formula is taken as the basis of the argument. Ancient wisdom alone solves
the presence of the universal fiend in a satisfactory way. It attributes the birth
of Kosmos and the evolution of life to the breaking asunder of the primordial,
manifested UNITY, into plurality, or the great illusion of
form. HOMOGENEITY having transformed itself into Heterogeneity,
contrasts have naturally been created; hence sprang what we call EVIL,
which thenceforward reigned supreme in this "Vale of Tears."
Materialistic Western philosophy (so misnamed) has not failed to profit by
this grand metaphysical tenet. Even physical Science, with Chemistry at its
head, has turned its attention of late to the first proposition, and directs
its efforts toward proving on irrefutable data the homogeneity of primordial
matter. But now steps in materialistic Pessimism, a teaching which is neither
philosophy nor science, but only a deluge of meaningless words. Pessimism, in
its latest development, having ceased to be pantheistic, having wedded itself
to materialism, prepares to make capital out of the old Indian formula. But
the atheistic pessimist soars no higher than the terrestrial homogeneous plasm
of the Darwinists. For him the ultima Thule is earth and matter, and
he sees, beyond the prima materia, only an ugly void, an empty nothingness.
Some of the pessimists attempt to poetize their idea after the manner of the
whitened sepulchres, or the Mexican corpses, whose ghastly cheeks and lips are
thickly covered with rouge. The decay of matter pierces through the mask of
seeming life, all efforts to the contrary notwithstanding.
Materialism patronizes Indian metaphor and imagery now. In a new work upon
the subject by Dr. Mainländer, "Pessimism and Progress,"
one learns that Indian Pantheism and German Pessimism are identical; and
that it is the breaking up of homogeneous matter into heterogeneous material,
the transition from uniformity to multiformity, which resulted in so unhappy
a universe. Saith Pessimism:
This [transition] is precisely the original mistake, the primordial
sin, which the whole creation has now to expiate by heavy suffering; it
is just that sin, which, having launched into existence all that lives,
plunged it thereby into the abysmal depths of evil and misery, to escape from
which there is but one means possible, i.e., by putting an
end to being itself.
This interpretation of the Eastern formula, attributing to it the first idea
of escaping the misery of life by "putting an end to being"--whether
that being is viewed as applicable to the whole Kosmos, or only to individual
life--is a gross misconception. The Eastern pantheist, whose philosophy teaches
him to discriminate between Being or ESSE and conditioned
existence, would hardly indulge in so absurd an idea as the postulation of such
an alternative. He knows he can put an end to form alone, not to being--and
that only on this plane of terrestrial illusion. True, he knows that by killing
out in himself Tanha (the unsatisfied desire for existence, or the "will
to live")--he will thus gradually escape the curse of rebirth and conditioned
existence. But he knows also that he cannot kill, or "put an end,"
even to his own little life except as a personality, which after all is but
a change of dress. And believing but in One Reality, which is eternal Be-ness,
the "causeless CAUSE" from which he
has exiled himself into a world of forms, he regards the temporary and progressing
manifestations of it in the state of Mâyâ (change or illusion),
as the greatest evil, truly; but at the same time as a process in nature, as
unavoidable as are the pangs of birth. It is the only means by which he can
pass from limited and conditioned lives of sorrow into eternal life, or into
that absolute "Be-ness," which is so graphically expressed in the
Sanskrit word sat.
The "pessimism" of the Hindu or Buddhist pantheist is metaphysical,
abstruse, and philosophical. The idea that matter and its Protean manifestations
are the source and origin of universal evil and sorrow is a very old one, though
Gautama Buddha was the first to give it its definite expression. But the great
Indian Reformer assuredly never meant to make of it a handle for the modern
pessimist to get hold of, or a peg for the materialist to hang his distorted
and pernicious tenets upon!
The Sage and Philosopher, who sacrificed himself for Humanity by living for
it, in order to save it, by teaching men to see in the sensuous existence
of matter misery alone, had never in his deep philosophical mind any idea of
offering a premium for suicide; his efforts were to release mankind from too
strong an attachment to life, which is the chief cause of Selfishness--hence
the creator of mutual pain and suffering. In his personal case, Buddha left
us an example of fortitude to follow; in living, not in running away from life.
His doctrine shows evil immanent, not in matter, which is eternal, but
in the illusions created by it: through the changes and transformations of matter
generating life--because these changes are conditioned and such life is ephemeral.
At the same time those evils are shown to be not only unavoidable, but necessary.
For if we would discern good from evil, light from darkness, and appreciate
the former, we can do so only through the contrasts between the two. While Buddha's
philosophy points, in its dead-letter meaning, only to the dark side of things
on this illusive plane; its esotericism, the hidden soul of it, draws the veil
aside and reveals to the Arhat all the glories of LIFE ETERNAL
in all the Homogeneousness of Consciousness and Being. Another absurdity,
no doubt, in the eyes of materialistic science and even modern Idealism, yet
a fact to the Sage and esoteric pantheist.
Nevertheless, the root idea that evil is born and generated by the ever increasing
complications of the homogeneous material, which enters into form and differentiates
more and more as that form becomes physically more perfect, has an esoteric
side to it which seems to have never occurred to the modern pessimist. Its dead-letter
aspect, however, became the subject of speculation with every ancient thinking
nation. Even in India the primitive thought, underlying the formula already
cited, has been disfigured by Sectarianism, and has led to the ritualistic,
purely dogmatic observances of the Hatha Yogis, in contradistinction
to the philosophical Vedantic Raja Yoga. Pagan and Christian exoteric
speculation, and even mediæval monastic asceticism, have extracted all
they could from the originally noble idea, and made it subservient to their
narrow-minded sectarian views. Their false conceptions of matter have led the
Christians from the earliest day to identify woman with Evil and matter--notwithstanding
the worship paid by the Roman Catholic Church to the Virgin.
But the latest application of the misunderstood Indian formula by the pessimists
in Germany is quite original, and rather unexpected, as we shall see. To draw
any analogy between a highly metaphysical teaching, and Darwin's theory of physical
evolution would, in itself, seem rather a hopeless task. The more so as the
theory of natural selection does not preach any conceivable extermination of
being, but, on the contrary, a continuous and ever increasing development
of life. Nevertheless, German ingenuity has contrived, by means of scientific
paradoxes and much sophistry, to give it a semblance of philosophical truth.
The old Indian tenet itself has not escaped litigation at the hands of modem
pessimism. The happy discoverer of the theory, that the origin of evil dates
from the protoplasmic Amoeba, which divided itself for procreation, and thus
lost its immaculate homogeneity, has laid claim to the Aryan archaic formula
in his new volume. While extolling its philosophy and the depth of ancient conceptions,
he declares that it ought to be viewed "as the most profound truth precogitated
and robbed by the ancient sages from modern thought"!
It thus follows that the deeply religious pantheism of the Hindu and Buddhist
philosopher, and the occasional vagaries of the pessimistic materialist, are
placed on the same level and identified by "modern thought." The impassable
chasm between the two is ignored. It matters little, it seems, that the pantheist,
recognizing no reality in the manifested Kosmos, and regarding it as a simple
illusion of his senses, has to view his own existence also as only a bundle
of illusions. When, therefore, he speaks of the means of escaping from the sufferings
of objective life, his view of those sufferings, and his motive for putting
an end to existence are entirely different from those of the pessimistic materialist.
For him, pain as well as sorrow are illusions, due to attachment to this life,
and ignorance. Therefore he strives after eternal, changeless life, and absolute
consciousness in the state of Nirvana; whereas the European pessimist, taking
the "evils" of life as realities, aspires - when he has the
time to aspire after anything except those said mundane realities, -
to annihilation of "being," as he expresses it. For the philosopher
there is but one real life, Nirvanic bliss, which is a state differing
in kind, not in degree only, from that of any of the planes of consciousness
in the manifested universe. The pessimist calls "Nirvana" superstition,
and explains it as "cessation of life," life for him beginning and
ending on earth. The former ignores in his spiritual aspirations even the integral
homogeneous unit, of which the German pessimist now makes such capital. He knows
of, and believes in only the direct cause of that unit, eternal and ever
living, because the ONE uncreated, or rather
not evoluted. Hence all his efforts are directed toward the speediest reunion
possible with, and return to his pre-primordial condition, after his
pilgrimage through this illusive series of visionary lives, with their unreal
phantasmagoria of sensuous perceptions.
Such pantheism can be qualified
as "pessimistic" only by a believer in a personal Providence; by one
who contrasts its negation of the reality of anything "created"--i.e.,
conditioned and limited-- with his own blind unphilosophical faith. The
Oriental mind does not busy itself with extracting evil from every radical law
and manifestation of life, and multiplying every phenomenal quantity by the
units of very often imaginary evils: the Eastern pantheist simply submits to
the inevitable, and tries to blot out from his path in life as many "descents
into rebirth" as he can, by avoiding the creation of new karmic causes.
The Buddhist philosopher knows that the duration of the series of lives of every
human being--unless he reaches Nirvana "artificially" ("takes
the kingdom of God by violence," in Kabalistic parlance)--is given, allegorically
in the forty-nine days
passed by Gautama the Buddha under the Bo-tree. And the Hindu sage is aware,
in his turn, that he has to light the first, and extinguish the forty-ninth
fire[This is an esoteric tenet, and the general reader
will not make much out of it. But the Theosophist who has read Esoteric Buddhism
may compute the 7 by 7 of the forty-nine "days" and the
forty-nine "fires," and understand that the allegory refers
esoterically to the seven human consecutive root-races with their seven subdivisions.
Every monad is born in the first and obtains deliverance in the last seventh
race. Only a "Buddha" is shown reaching it during the course of one
life. ] before he reaches his final deliverance. Knowing
this, both sage and philosopher wait patiently for the natural hour of deliverance;
whereas their unlucky copyist, the European pessimist, is ever ready to commit,
as to preach, suicide. Ignorant of the numberless heads of the hydra of existences,
he is incapable of feeling the same philosophical scorn for life as he does
for death, and of, thereby, following the wise example given him by his Oriental
brother.
Thus, philosophic pantheism is very different from modern pessimism. The first
is based upon the correct understanding of the mysteries of being; the latter
is in reality only one more system of evil added by unhealthy fancy to the already
large sum of real social evils. In sober truth it is no philosophy, but simply
a systematic slander of life and being; the bilious utterances of a dyspeptic
or an incurable hypochondriac. No parallel can ever be attempted between the
two systems of thought.
The seeds of evil and sorrow were indeed the earliest result and consequence
of the heterogeneity of the manifested universe. Still they are but an illusion
produced by the law of contrasts, which, as described, is a fundamental law
in nature. Neither good nor evil would exist were it not for the light they
mutually throw on each other. Being, under whatever form, having been
observed from the World's creation to offer these contrasts, and evil predominating
in the universe owing to Ego-ship or selfishness, the rich Oriental
metaphor has pointed to existence as expiating the mistake of nature; and the
human soul (psüche), was henceforth regarded as the scapegoat and
victim of unconscious OVERSOUL. But it is not to
Pessimism, but to Wisdom that it gave birth.
Ignorance alone is the willing martyr, but knowledge is the master of natural
pessimism. Gradually, and by the process of heredity or atavism, the
latter became innate in man. It is always present in us, howsoever latent and
silent its voice in the beginning. Amid the early joys of existence, when we
are still full of the vital energies of youth, we are yet apt, each of us, at
the first pang of sorrow, after a failure, or at the sudden appearance of a
black cloud, to accuse life of it; to feel life a burden, and
often curse our being. This shows pessimism in our blood, but at the same time
the presence of the fruits of ignorance. As mankind multiplies, and with it
suffering - which is the natural result of an increasing number of units that
generate it - sorrow and pain are intensified. We live in an atmosphere of gloom
and despair, but this is because our eyes are downcast and riveted to the earth,
with all its physical and grossly material manifestations. If, instead of that,
man, proceeding on his life-journey looked--not heavenward, which is but a figure
of speech--but within himself and centered his point of observation on
the inner man, he would soon escape from the coils of the great serpent
of illusion. From the cradle to the grave, his life would then become supportable
and worth living, even in its worst phases.
Pessimism - that chronic suspicion of lurking evil everywhere - is thus of
a two-fold nature, and brings fruits of two kinds. It is a natural characteristic
in physical man, and becomes a curse only to the ignorant. It is a boon to the
spiritual, inasmuch as it makes the latter turn into the right path, and brings
him to the discovery of another as fundamental a truth; namely, that all in
this world is only preparatory because transitory. It is like a chink
in the dark prison walls of earth-life, through which breaks in a ray of light
from the eternal home, which, illuminating the inner senses, whispers
to the prisoner in his shell of clay of the origin and the dual mystery of our
being. At the same time, it is a tacit proof of the presence in man of that
which knows, without being told, viz:--that there is another and a better
life, once that the curse of earth-lives is lived through.
This explanation of the problem and origin of evil being, as already said,
of an entirely metaphysical character, has nothing to do with physical laws.
Belonging as it does altogether to the spiritual part of man, to dabble with
it superficially is, therefore, far more dangerous than to remain ignorant of
it. For, as it lies at the very root of Gautama Buddha's ethics, and since it
has now fallen into the hands of the modern Philistines of materialism, to confuse
the two systems of "pessimistic" thought can lead but to mental suicide,
if it does not lead to worse.
Eastern wisdom teaches that spirit
has to pass through the ordeal of incarnation and life, and be baptised with
matter before it can reach experience and knowledge. After which only it receives
the baptism of soul, or self-consciousness, and may return to its original condition
of a god, plus experience, ending with omniscience. In other words, it
can return to the original state of the homogeneity of primordial essence only
through the addition of the fruitage of Karma, which alone is able to create
an absolute conscious deity, removed but one degree from the absolute
ALL.
Even according to the letter of
the Bible, evil must have existed before Adam and Eve, who, therefore, are innocent
of the slander of the original sin had there been no evil or sin before them,
there could exist neither tempting Serpent nor a Tree of Knowledge of good
and evil in Eden. The characteristics of that apple-tree are shown in the
verse when the couple had tasted of its fruit: "The eyes of them both were
opened, and they knew" many things besides knowing they were naked.
Too much knowledge about things of matter is thus rightly shown an evil.
But so it is, and it is our duty
to examine and combat the new pernicious theory. Hitherto, pessimism was kept
in the regions of philosophy and metaphysics, and showed no pretensions to intrude
into the domain of purely physical science, such as Darwinism. The theory of
evolution has become almost universal now, and there is no school (save the
Sunday and missionary schools) where it is not taught, with more or less modifications
from the original programme. On the other hand, there is no other teaching more
abused and taken advantage of than evolution, especially by the application
of its fundamental laws to the solution of the most compound and abstract problems
of man's many-sided existence. There, where psychology and even philosophy "fear
to tread," materialistic biology applies its sledge-hammer of superficial
analogies and prejudged conclusions. Worse than all, claiming man to be only
a higher animal, it maintains this right as undeniably pertaining to the domain
of the science of evolution. Paradoxes in those "domains" do not rain
now, they pour. As "man is the measure of all things," therefore is
man measured and analysed by the animal. One German materialist claims spiritual
and psychic evolution as the
lawful property of physiology and biology; the mysteries of embryology and zoology
alone, it is said, being capable of solving those of consciousness in man and
the origin of his soul [Haeckel.] Another
finds justification for suicide in the example of animals, who, when tired of
living, put an end to existence by starvation [Leo Bach.]
Hitherto pessimism, notwithstanding the abundance and brilliancy of its paradoxes,
had a weak point - namely, the absence of any real and evident basis for it
to rest upon. Its followers had no living, guiding thought to serve them as
a beacon and help them to steer clear of the sandbanks of life--real and imaginary--so
profusely sown by themselves in the shape of denunciations against life and
being. All they could do was to rely upon their representatives, who occupied
their time very ingeniously if not profitably, in tacking the many and various
evils of life to the metaphysical propositions of great German thinkers, like
Schopenhauer and Hartmann, as small boys tack on coloured tails to the kites
of their elders and rejoice at seeing them launched in the air. But now the
programme will be changed. The pessimists have found something more solid and
authoritative, if less philosophical, to tack their jeremiads and dirges to,
than the metaphysical kites of Schopenhauer. The day when they agreed
with the views of this philosopher, which pointed at the Universal WILL
as the perpetrator of all the World-evil, is gone to return no more. Nor will
they be any better satisfied with the hazy "Unconscious" of von Hartmann.
They have been seeking diligently for a more congenial and less metaphysical
soil to build their pessimistic philosophy upon, and they have been rewarded
with success, now that the cause of Universal Suffering has been discovered
by them in the fundamental laws of physical development. Evil will no longer
be allied with the misty and uncertain Phantom called "WILL,"
but with an actual and obvious fact: the pessimists will henceforth be towed
by the Evolutionists.
The basic argument of their representative has been given in the opening sentence
of this article. The Universe and all on it appeared in consequence of the "breaking
asunder of UNITY into Plurality." This rather
dim rendering of the Indian formula is not made to refer, as I have shown, in
the mind of the pessimist, to the one Unity, to the Vedantin abstraction - -Parabrahm:
otherwise, I should not certainly have used the words "breaking up."
Nor does it concern itself much with Mulaprakrti, or the "Veil" of
Parabrahm; nor even with the first manifested primordial matter, except inferentially,
as follows from Dr. Mainländer's exposition, but chiefly with the terrestrial
protoplasm. Spirit or deity is entirely ignored in this case; evidently
because of the necessity for showing the whole as "the lawful domain of
physical Science."
In short, the time-honoured formula is claimed to have its basis and to find
its justification in the theory that from "a few, perhaps one, single form
of the very simplest nature" (Darwin), "all the different animals
and plants living to-day, and all the organisms that have ever lived on the
earth," have gradually developed. It is this axiom of Science, we are told,
which justifies and demonstrates the Hindu philosophical tenet. What is this
axiom? Why, it is this: Science teaches that the series of transformations through
which the seed is made to pass--the seed that grows into a tree, or becomes
an ovum, or that which develops into an animal--consists in every case in nothing
but the passage of the fabric of that seed, from the homogeneous into the heterogeneous
or compound form. This is then the scientific verity which checks the Indian
formula by that of the Evolutionists, identifies both, and thus exalts ancient
wisdom by recognizing it worthy of modern materialistic thought.
This philosophical formula is not simply corroborated by the individual growth
and development of isolated species, explains our pessimist; but it is demonstrated
in general as in detail. It is shown justified in the evolution and growth of
the Universe as well as in that of our planet. In short, the birth, growth and
development of the whole organic world in its integral totality, are there to
demonstrate ancient wisdom. From the universals down to the particulars, the
organic world is discovered to be subject to the same law of ever increasing
elaboration, of the transition from unity to plurality as "the fundamental
formula of the evolution of life." Even the growth of nations, of social
life, public institutions, the development of the languages, arts and sciences,
- all this follows inevitably and fatally the all-embracing law of "the
breaking asunder of unity into plurality, and the passage of the homogeneous
into multiformity."
But while following Indian wisdom, our author exaggerates this fundamental
law in his own way, and distorts it. He brings this law to bear even on the
historical destinies of mankind. He makes these destinies subservient to, and
a proof of, the correctness of the Indian conception.
He maintains that humanity as an integral whole, in proportion as it develops
and progresses in its evolution, and separates in its parts - each becoming
a distinct and independent branch of the unit - drifts more and more away from
its original healthy, harmonious unity. The complications of social establishment,
social relations, as those of individuality, all lead to the weakening of the
vital power, the relaxation of the energy of feeling, and to the destruction
of that integral unity, without which no inner harmony is possible. The absence
of that harmony generates an inner discord which becomes the cause of the greatest
mental misery. Evil has its roots in the very nature of the evolution of life
and its complications. Every one of its steps forward is at the same time a
step taken toward the dissolution of its energy, and leads to passive apathy.
Such is the inevitable result, he says, of every progressive complication of
life; because evolution or development is a transition from the homogeneous
to the heterogeneous, a scattering of the whole into the many, etc., etc. The
terrible law is universal and applies to all creation, from the infinitesimally
small up to man for, as he says, it is a fundamental law of nature.
Now, it is just in this one-sided view of physical nature, which the German
author accepts without one single thought as to its spiritual and psychic aspect,
that his school is doomed to certain failure. It is not a question whether the
said law of differentiation and its fatal consequences may or may not apply,
in certain cases, to the growth and development of the animal species, and even
of man; but simply, since it is the basis and main support of the whole new
theory of the pessimistic school, whether it is really a universal and
fundamental law? We want to know whether this basic formula of evolution embraces
the whole process of development and growth in its entirety; and whether, indeed,
it is within the domain of physical science or not. If it is "nothing else
than the transition from the homogeneous state to the heterogeneous," as
says Mainländer, then it remains to be proved that the given process "produces
that complicated combination of tissues and organs which forms and completes
the perfect animal and plant."
As remarked already by some critics on "Pessimism and Progress,"
the German pessimist does not doubt it for one moment. His supposed discovery
and teaching "rest wholly on his certitude that development and the fundamental
law of the complicated process of organization represent but one thing: the
transformation of unity into plurality." Hence the identification of the
process with dissolution and decay, and the weakening of all the forces and
energies. Mainländer would be right in his analogies were this law of the
differentiation of the homogeneous into the heterogeneous to really represent
the fundamental law of the evolution of life. But the idea is quite erroneous
- metaphysically as well as physically. Evolution does not proceed in a straight
line; no more than any other process in nature, but journeys on cyclically,
as does all the rest. The cyclic serpents swallow their tails like the Serpent
of Eternity. And it is in this that the Indian formula, which is a Secret Doctrine
teaching, is indeed corroborated by the natural Sciences, and especially by
biology.
This is what we read in the "Scientific Letters" by an
anonymous Russian author and critic:
In the evolution of isolated individuals, in the evolution of the
organic world, in that of the Universe, as in the growth and development of
our planet--in short wherever any of the processes of progressive complexity
take place, there we find, apart from the transition from unity to plurality,
and homogeneity to heterogeneity, a converse transformation--the transition
front plurality to unity, from the heterogeneous to the homogeneous. . . . Minute
observation of the given process of progressive complexity has shown, that what
takes place in it is not alone the separation of parts, but also their mutual
absorption. . . . While one portion of the cells merge into each other and unite
into one uniform whole. forming muscular fibres, muscular tissue, others are
absorbed in the bone and nerve tissues, etc., etc. The same take place in the
formation of plants. . . .
In this case material nature repeats the law that acts in the evolution of
the psychic and the spiritual: both descend but to reascend and merge at the
starting-point. The homogeneous formative mass or element differentiated
in its parts, is gradually transformed into the heterogeneous; then, merging
those parts into a harmonious whole, it recommences a converse process, or reinvolution,
and returns as gradually into its primitive or primordial state.
Nor does Pessimism find any better support in pure Materialism, as hitherto
the latter has been tinged with a decidedly optimistic bias. Its leading advocates
have, indeed, never hesitated to sneer at the theological adoration of the "glory
of God and all his works." Büchner flings a taunt at the pantheist
who sees in so "mad and bad" a world the manifestation of the Absolute.
But, on the whole, the materialists admit a balance of good over evil, perhaps
as a buffer against any "superstitious" tendency to look out and hope
for a better one. Narrow as is their outlook, and limited as is their spiritual
horizon, they yet see no cause to despair of the drift of things in general.
The pantheistic pessimists, however, have never ceased to urge that a
despair of conscious being is the only legitimate outcome of atheistic negation.
This opinion is, of course, axiomatic, or ought to be so. If "in this life
only is there hope," the tragedy of life is absolutely without any raison
d'être and a perpetuation of the drama is as foolish as it is futile.
The fact that the conclusions of pessimism have been at last assimilated by
a certain class of atheistic writers, is a striking feature of the day, and
another sign of the times. It illustrates the truism that the void created by
modern scientific negation cannot and never can be filled by the cold prospects
offered as a solatium to optimists. The Comtean "enthusiasm of Humanity"
is a poor thing enough with annihilation of the Race to ensue "as the solar
fires die slowly out"--if, indeed, they do die at all--to please
physical science at the computed time. If all present sorrow and suffering,
the fierce struggle for existence and all its attendant horrors, go for nothing
in the long run, if MAN
is a mere ephemeron, the sport of blind forces, why assist in the perpetuation
of the farce? The "ceaseless grind of matter, force and law," will
but hurry the swarming human millions into eternal oblivion, and ultimately
leave no trace or memory of the past, when things return to the nebulosity of
the fire-mist, whence they emerged. Terrestrial life is no object in itself.
It is overcast with gloom and misery. It does not seem strange, then, that the
Soul-blind negationist should prefer the pessimism of Schopenhauer to the baseless
optimism of Strauss and his followers, which, in the face of their teachings,
reminds one of the animal spirits of a young donkey, after a good meal of thistles.
One thing is, however, clear: the absolute necessity for some solution, which
embraces the facts of existence on an optimistic basis. Modern Society is permeated
with an increasing cynicism and honeycombed with disgust of life. This is the
result of an utter ignorance of the operations of Karma and the nature of Soul
evolution. It is from a mistaken allegiance to the dogmas of a mechanical and
largely spurious theory of Evolution, that Pessimism has risen to such undue
importance. Once the basis of the Great Law is grasped -and what philosophy
can furnish better means for such a grasp and final solution, than the esoteric
doctrine of the great Indian Sages? - there remains no possible locus standi
for the recent amendments to the Schopenhauerian system of thought or the
metaphysical subtleties, woven by the "philosopher of the Unconscious."
The reasonableness of conscious Existence can be proved only by the study
of the primeval--now esoteric--philosophy. And it says "there is neither
death nor life, for both are illusions; being (or be-ness) is the only
reality." This paradox was repeated thousands of ages later by one of the
greatest physiologists that ever lived. "Life is Death," said Claude
Bernard. The organism lives because its parts are ever dying. The survival of
the fittest is surely based on this truism. The life of the superior whole requires
the death of the inferior, the death of the parts depending on and being subservient
to it. And, as life is death, so death is life, and the whole great cycle of
lives form but ONE EXISTENCE--the worst day of which
is on our planet.
He who KNOWS will make the best of it. For there is a
dawn for every being, when once freed from illusion and ignorance by Knowledge;
and he will at last proclaim in truth and all Consciousness to Mahamâyâ:
BROKEN THY HOUSE IS,
AND THE RIDGE-POLE SPLIT!
DELUSION FASHIONED IT!
SAFE PASS I THENCE--DELIVERANCE TO OBTAIN.
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