Truth lingers even now among the masses. But it is only in the trans-Himalayan fastnesses that the Esoteric “Good Law,” or the “Heart’s Seal,” lives to the present day in all its pristine purity. Neither the Indian nor the Buddhist system can be understood without a key, nor can the study of comparative religion become a “science” until the symbols of every Religion yield their final secrets. The “Eye Doctrine” means dogma and dead-letter form, church ritualism intended for those who are content with exoteric formulæ. The “Heart Doctrine,” or the “Heart’s Seal” is the only real one. The essential difference between the “Eye” and the “Heart,” or the outward form and the hidden meaning, i.e., Cold Metaphysics versus Divine Wisdom, is clearly demonstrated in several volumes on Chinese Buddhism, written by sundry missionaries. It is useless to enumerate an endless string of the finest Oriental scholars who are credited with having exposed to view the ancient Hindu world, by revealing the sacred and secret books of Buddhism. But the world they revealed has never been veiled. Is it those who belong to the most anthropomorphic religion in the world, who have a right to take ancient Philosophers to task for an exaggerated religious awe and veneration? The pseudo-Buddhism of Joseph Edkins is unmasked. We fear the learned writer is on a false track as to Nirvana and Amita-Buddha. When the misuse of dogmatic Buddhist Scriptures had reached its climax, and the true spirit of the Buddha’s Philosophy was nearly lost, several reformers appeared from India, who established an oral teaching. Lord Buddha states that it is better to believe in a future life, in which happiness or misery can be felt: for, if the heart believes therein, it will abandon sin and act virtuously; and, even if there is no rebirth, a good life will bring a good name, and the reward of men. But those who believe in extinction at death will not fail to commit any sin that they may choose because of their disbelief in a bright and glorious future. Why has Truth to hide like a tortoise within its shell? Because no one can be entrusted with the knowledge of the Secret Science before his time.
The Secrets of Nature and of Occult Sciences cannot be revealed to the profane, who will desecrate them and turn into a weapon against humanity. They can only be imparted to a regular chela of many years’ standing, pledged to silence and secrecy during his successive initiations. Such Secrets do exist and are defended with one’s life. Occult Truth is Nature without the illusory veil of the Five Senses. Reason is purely human; instinct, an endowment of Deity. Sixth Sense is Reason over instinct, i.e., Mental Fire perceiving and registering the other Five. The Sixth Sense is spiritual clairvoyance, as opposed to psychic. The former is normal and real; the latter, abnormal and counterfeit. Not before developing his Sixth Sense, will the man of science concede the error of his theories as to the solar spectrum, unless he retracts his marked weakness for conditional and disjunctive syllogisms ending in eternal dilemmas. Appearances are deceitful, says a Master of Wisdom. While the astronomer has elucidated the visible relations of the orbs of space, he knows nothing of their inner constitution. Similarly, the knowledge of geologist and physiologist is confined to man’s outer shell. The Adept cannot cross bodily the limits of the solar system, yet he knows that far stretching beyond the telescopic power of detection there are systems upon systems, the smallest of which would, when compared with the system of Sirius, make the latter seem like an atom of dust imbedded in the great Gobi desert. Divine Wisdom alone can carry us to the perfect state of Jivanmukta, by teaching us what is true and what is false. Till then, the next best thing to learning what is true is to ascertain what is not true. With biographical notes on Frederick W.H. Myers, Sir William Crookes, and Johann Karl Friedrich Zöllner.
These study notes are about a Fellow of the Theosophical Society in Paris, who asserted that Theosophy is a doctrine without proof, without authority, and without prestige in its origin; who accused Brother Theosophists of teaching pseudo-Theosophy and preaching annihilation of the spiritual ego; who talked about the yugas like a blind man about colours; who invented apocryphal Codes in order to discredit Oriental Theosophy; who was not aware of the relation between the sacred sound and the ether of space, or that the Yajur-Veda is “black” when recited by whose accent is impure.
Oh, the unspeakable hypocrisy of our age! The age when everything under the Sun and Moon is for sale and bought! Though centuries lapse and decades of ages drop out of the lap of time, great reforms take place, empires rise and fall and rise again, and even whole races disappear before the triumphant march of civilization, in his terrific selfishness the “man” that was is the “man” that is. In their internal, or rather, essential constitution, both nature and man are at one, as their essence is identical. All grows and develops and strives towards perfection on the former planes of externality or, as well said by a philosopher, is “ever becoming”; but on the ultimate plane of the spiritual essence all is, and remains therefore immutable. It is towards this eternal Esse that everything, as every being, is gravitating gradually, almost imperceptibly, but as surely as the Universe of stars and worlds moves towards a mysterious point known to, yet still unnamed by, astronomy and called by the Occultists — the Central Spiritual Sun. Yet there are still men who, notwithstanding the present chaotic condition of the moral world and the sorry débris of the best human ideals, still persist in believing and teaching that the now ideal human perfection is no dream, but a law of divine nature; and that, had mankind to wait even millions of years, still it must someday reach it and rebecome a race of gods. For the loving essence cannot be extinguished but only perverted. Without this saving redemptive power, embodied in Satan, he simply appears as the nonsensical failure of omnipotent and omniscient imbecility which the opponents of theological Christianity sneeringly and very justly make him; with it, he becomes a thinkable Entity, the Asuras of the Puranic myths, the first breaths of Brahm?, who, after fighting the gods and defeating them, are finally themselves defeated and then hurled on to the earth where they incarnate in Humanity. Thus Satanic Humanity becomes comprehensible. After moving around his cycle of obstacles Satan may, with accumulated experiences, after all the throes of Humanity, emerge again into the light. The All-denying protestors, Atheists, Nihilists, and Anarchists men of Terror, they are just Satan himself; for he is the ideal synthesis of all discordant forces and each separate human vice or passion is but an atom of his totality. In the very depths of the heart of this Human Satanic totality burns the divine spark, all negations notwithstanding. It is called Love for Humanity, an ardent aspiration for a universal reign of Justice — hence a latent desire for light, harmony and goodness. Where do we find such a divine spark among the proud and the wealthy?
The main cause of pain lies in our perpetually seeking the permanent in the impermanent, and the trouble that comes upon us is always just the one we feel to be the hardest that could possibly happen, the one thing we feel we cannot possibly bear. Evil is often the result of anxiety, in anticipation of recognition and personal reward. The mission of the Theosophical Society is to rekindle the torch of truth by the formation of a fraternal union of mankind, the only soil in which the good seed can grow. To those who are keen to acquire psychic powers for private advantage we have nothing to say. Beware of quick and easy ways of acquiring psychic “gifts.” If in each of our branches we were able to establish a homeopathic dispensary, with the addition of mesmeric healing, we might contribute towards putting the science of medicine in this country on a sounder basis, and be the means of incalculable benefit to the people at large.
Metaphysical, mystical, and philosophical excerpts from Dr. N.I. Pirogov, Problems of Life: The Diary of an Old Physician. Selected and translated from the Russian by H.P. Blavatsky, with extensive annotations and commentary. The thoughts of the false “I” or “personality,” are mere shadows of the true Individuality and Higher Ego. The records of past events and passing thoughts, even the most trifling ones, are impressed on the imperishable waves of Astral Light, not in the brain alone. Intuition is divine but faith is human, and the misapplication of inner intuition. “Personality,” being the illusion of separateness, is the root cause of all selfishness and evil. It has to be conquered and crushed before the lower is united with its higher counterpart. Loss of mind is due to the paralysis of the higher functions in Kama-Manas, the physical mind and, in cases of incurable insanity, to the severance of the lower self from the Higher Self during a person’s lifetime, thus preventing the reunion of the two. When one falls into a love of self and love of the world, with its pleasures, losing the divine love of God and of the neighbour, he falls from the illusionary life and fear of death to real death. The higher principles, which constitute the essential elements of his humanity perish, and he lives only on the natural plane of his faculties. The “atoms” of Science are not of this earth but belong to quite a different plane. And the atomic theory is on a par only with the undulatory theory of light. The Ether of Space is considerably different from the medium of Science. The chasm between mind and matter is impassable. No theory of evolution or “heredity” will ever cover or explain the mystery. The incessantly rolling and waving Ocean of Life of Dr. Pirogov is the triply manifested Deity of the Occultists — two opposing forces of spirituality and animalism eternally reacting upon each other, Universal Mind, and Eternal Atom. The immortal Higher Ego (Nous) is man’s true Individuality, that keeps reincarnating in a new personality at every birth. Dr. Pirogov’s purely natural idealism is a spiritual perception of eternal truths, that no scientific sophistry could destroy or even blunt. He esteems Truth higher than Science. Physical Science calls “atoms” that which the Occultists regard as particles or molecules. The real Atoms are the inner principles and the intelligent, spiritual guides of the cells and particles they inform. Man is produced in the image of God or Divine Nature. Every cell in the human organism corresponds with a like “cell” in the divine organism or the manifested universe. The “I” of man or Microcosm, and the Universe or Macrocosm are illusions, inseparable and interdependent, but illusion nevertheless. The human mind, or lower manas, is a direct ray or reflection of a Higher Principle, the Noetic Mind. The latter is the reincarnating Ego, which old Aryan philosophers call Manasaputras, the “Sons of Mind” or Mahat — the Universal Cosmic Mind. Dr. Pirogov can hardly be taken to task and declared unscientific, in accepting the existence of a seven-dimensional space in co-ordination with the seven states of consciousness. In the course of natural evolution our “brain-mind” will be replaced by a finer and more spiritually receptive organism, helped by the sixth and the seventh senses. A Higher Principle may be independent of the matter it rules, but only when outside of space and time. God is the centre; the Intellectual-Principle, an unmoving circle; Soul, a circle in motion. As our mind is but the product of Universal Mind, so is the latter but a differentiated ray of the Absolute Mind or No-Mind — a state of Perfect Unconsciousness. Atom is not the smallest constituent unit of matter, not even a mathematical point, it is an immutable Entity, a reality within an appearance — the molecule being in Occult Philosophy but a figment of maya-illusion. It may be described as a compact or crystallized point of divine Energy and Ideation. Occultism affirms that there is no such thing as inert, dead, or even inorganic matter. Time is abstract motion in space, i.e., force acting in space and transforming itself, by this very action, into substance. In philosophy the term empirical is the product of experience and observation, plus Science. The “sensing principle” in us is an entity capable of acting outside as inside its material body; and it is certainly independent of any organ in particular, in its actions — although during its incarnation it manifests itself through its physical organs. Our Higher Ego is a ray of the Universal Mind, individualized for the span of a cosmic life-cycle, during which time it gets experience through almost numberless reincarnations or rebirths, before returning to its Parent-Source. There are two minds in man, two aspects of the same divine principle, the higher or true Individuality, and the lower or Personality. It is these two that during our lifetime are in incessant struggle, the one trying to gravitate heavenward, the other dragged down by its animal nature to the earth earthy. Nothing that takes place, no manifestation however rapid or weak, can ever be lost from the skandhic records of a man’s life. The Universal Memory preserves every motion, the slightest wave and feeling that ripples the waves of differentiated nature, whether of man or of Universe. The metaphysician and the theosophist will applaud almost every word Dr. Pirogov says, regretting only that men of such profoundly intuitional nature should be so rare among the men of science.
The Theosophical Society was founded in New York City, in 1875, in order to save humanity before the hour strikes; and before the crisis, brought about necromancy and other infernal arts, is deepened. The Society stands above human sects, for it has been established in the Spirit of Universal Brotherhood. Though an exoteric body, Its fount and source is the White Lodge of Masters of Wisdom which is wholly esoteric. The Light of Theosophy differs greatly from Its shadows on earth. Theosophy is Divine Soul; the Society, Its imperfect body; neither has anything to do with the frailties of individuals. Theosophy is neither national property, nor religion, but only the universal code of science and of the most transcendental ethics that were ever known; It lies at the root of every moral philosophy and religion. The raison d’être of the Society is not to gratify individual aspirations but to serve each and every individual on earth, and all that lives, without any distinction or condition. It asserts that only pristine love of humanity in thought and deed can free the masses from the despotism of the personal and ephemeral, and help all find the true happiness that lies in the impersonal and eternal. Whilst the Society supports educational initiatives that inculcate independent thinking, self-reliance, and right conduct, the Society as a body has no creed. Therefore, orthodoxy in Theosophy is neither possible nor desirable. “Theosophy first and organization after” — what golden words are these! The Society can only become a power for good if Its members co-operate to do something, no matter how modest, to help their fellow human beings by acting theosophy, rather than philosophising about it. Those who, while trying to solve the riddles of life by exploring the Occult forces in Nature, do sympathise with the suffering of their brothers, and are doing whatever they can to help out their neighbours and brothers, are born mystics or natural Theosophists. They are mankind’s true Brothers and Benefactors. Useless are those members of the Society who have neither an inclination nor the courage to live the life prescribed by Theosophy. “Be Theosophists, Work for Theosophy,” was Madame Blavatsky’s message a month before she passed away.
