Is it possible for me, who loves animals, to learn how to get more power than I have to help them in their sufferings? Why do the noblest animals suffer so much at the hands of men? I need not enlarge or try to explain this question. Cities are torture places for the animals who can be turned to any account for use or amusement by man! And these are always the most noble. Why should a harmless creature be burnt alive, or vivisected? Suffering is the cause of knowledge, so that the incarnating entity gains experience, although the organism is tortured to death. In China frogs are under the protection of law. We award the palm of superiority to the Chinese over the English legal documents, for the mellifluous, kindly, and fatherly appeal of the philobatrachian Chinese is far superior to dry, commaless, and incomprehensible legal twaddle of the British lawyer.
A 13-point criticism of Max Müller’s “Matsya Sukta” by H.P. Blavatsky 1. How an Oxford Orientalist and chief defender of Hinduism makes fun of the First Avatara of Vishnu, for the sole purpose of amusing his friends. 2. Max Müller’s parody is clearly intended to corrupt the Vedas. 3. There is nothing more ridiculous than a self-proclaimed Rishi. 4. Though the Vedic Mantras are not creations of any existing being, Müller had the audacity to call his ludicrous poem a Sukta. 5. Bereft of Viniyoga, Müller’s grossly irreverent little poem serves no other purpose than insolent self-conceit. 6. And his poking infantine fun to deity cast an indelible stain on his legacy. 7. The great Vedic scholar of his day not only used the Vedic form of the Gayatri Metre in his poem, he also failed to mark his words with their proper accents. 8. Since, in every creation, the Vedas are revealed to the same men only, there is no room for new Rishis; and Müller, as his travesty of the first Avatara of Vishnu shows, is most unwise if not actually foolish. 9. His “Matsya Sukta” exposes an undistinguished scholarship in Sanskrit learning, and a marked deficiency in Sanskrit grammar. 10. The poem consists of eight lines only, but even in these few lines, passages from the Rigveda have been plagiarised. 11. For a Sanskrit poet nothing is more disreputable than to “borrow” passages from another’s works. 12. Lakshmi, the Hindu Venus-Aphrodite, is the goddess of wealth, not of happiness. 13. More! Neither the Rishis of modern nor of ancient times were acquainted even with the name of the fish. How then could it be praised by them?
The “Aristotelean philosopher” is the mouthpiece of that majority in modern society which has worked itself out an elaborate policy full of sophistry and paradox, behind which every member clumsily hides his personal views. His “respectable deference to public opinion,” is short-hand for hypocrisy. He confuses phenomena for which the agency of “disembodied spirits” is claimed, with natural phenomena for which every tithe of supernaturalism is rejected. He, who does not believe in Spiritualism cannot believe in Christianity, for the very foundation of that faith is the materialization of their Saviour. If Spiritualism and Occultism are superstition and falsehood, so is Christianity with its Mosaic miracles and the witches of Endor, its resurrections and materialization of angels, and hundreds of other spiritual and occult phenomena. Is belief in the Holy Ghost less blind than belief in the “ghosts” of our departed fathers and mothers? Is faith in an abstract and never-to-be-scientifically-proven principle any more “respectable” or worthy of sympathy than that other faith of believers, as earnest as Christians are, that the spirits of those whom they loved best on earth, their mothers, children, friends, are ever near them, though their bodies may be gone? Physical as well as psychological phenomena court experiment and the investigations of science; whereas, supernatural religion dreads and avoids such. The former claims no miracles, no supernaturalism to hang its faith upon, while religion imperatively demands them, and invariably collapses whenever such belief is withdrawn. An abusive, uncompromising bigot is more honest than a mild-spoken, sneering hypocrite. A lady who will not blush to empty in the view of all a tumbler of stiff brandy and soda, will stare, in shocked amazement, at another of her sex smoking an innocent cigarette! Madame Blavatsky defends the Cause of Truth from its detractors and traducers. Facts existed in the “pre-scientific past,” and errors are as thick as berries in our scientific present. Modern science is atheistic, phantasmagorical, and always in labour with conjecture. Not to know is its climax. With whom then, is the criterion of truth to be left? Are we to abandon Truth to the mercy and judgment of a prejudiced society, constantly caught trying to subvert that which it does not understand? A society ever seeking to transform sham and hypocrisy into synonyms of “propriety” and “respectability”? During that incessant warfare, in which old creeds and new doctrines, conflicting schools and authorities, revivals of blind faith and incessant scientific discoveries running a race as though for the survival of the fittest, swallow up and mutually destroy and annihilate each other — it would take a sage much wiser than King Solomon himself to decide between fact and fiction! Mental slavery is the worst of all slaveries. It is a state which, as brutal force has no real power, indicates either an abject cowardice or a great intellectual weakness. Undisputed fact is the only tribunal we submit to and recognize it without appeal. The Theosophical Society is an absolute and uncompromising Republic of Conscience; preconception and narrow-mindedness in science and philosophy have no room in it: they are as hateful and as much denounced by us, as dogmatism and bigotry in theology. The worms of sham and hypocrisy have gnawed the roots of wisdom and hardened the human heart. Instead of spiritualizing matter, the Shakers of America, and the “Apostles” of the Calcutta New Dispensation, materialize spirit. Spiritualism, as a sect, has as much a right for recognition as any other Christian sect. But then, how can belief in spirits, the surviving souls of departed men — quite an orthodox Christian dogma — be held disreputable by the Christian public? As long as the Christian public professes belief in, and veneration for its ancestral faith, it behoves them little to throw the accusation of “degrading superstitions and credulity” into the teeth of Spiritualism. The scientific basis of Spiritualism corroborated by modern science.
The most venomous monsters bred by calumny, envy, hatred, and revenge are former Theosophists. They, whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad. The Religio-Philosophical Journal is neither religious nor philosophical. As the Indian spirit of patriotism and independence had been numbed, Colonel Olcott called upon the Japanese not to prostrate themselves at the shrine of foreign civilization.
The merry massacres of sport and the horrors of vivisection are most objectionable to occult philosophy. Intelligence is not the prerogative of man; sophistry is. Karma, as the moral law, does not apply to animals, children and the insane, who bear no moral responsibility. But Karma, as the law of cause and effect, applies to all departments of nature.
Selfishness, envy, revenge, and malice are mankind’s deadliest curses. Selfishness is love misdirected to, and jealously kept for one’s little self at the expense of his Spiritual Self and of all other selves, who are transient rays of One Universal Self. Selfishness and ambition are mankind’s deadliest curses. Great intellect and too much knowledge is a two-edged weapon in life, and instruments for evil, as well as for good. When combined with Selfishness, they will make of the whole of Humanity a footstool for the elevation of him who possesses them, and a means for the attainment of his objects; while, applied to altruistic and humanitarian purposes, they may become the means of salvation of the many. Pride and Presumption, the two chief prompters of Selfishness and Egotism, are the causes that emptied heaven of one third of its divine dwellers (mystically) and of another third, of the stars (astronomically). The first statement is an allegory intimately connected with humanity; the second, a fact. Our age is criminal in its frightful selfishness, in its scepticism which grimaces at the very idea of anything beyond the material, and in its idiotic indifference to all that does not pertain to the personal self — more than any of the past ages of ignorant barbarism and intellectual darkness. The paths are many but Wisdom is One. Artistic souls envision it, those who suffer dream of it, the pure in heart know it. Only light and empty heads, egotistical and vain drones, confused by their own buzzing, will remain ignorant of the supreme ideal. They will continue existing until life becomes a grievous burden to them. Pride and conceit are the two malignant cancers devouring the heart of “civilized” nations. Selfishness is the sword of Damocles dangling by evanescent personality over the golden thread that links it with its Spiritual Centre and Life Eternal. One never ceases to be astonished by the egoism, vanity, and “self-sufficiency” of the majority. There are some for whom their little personality constitutes the whole universe. The vices and illusions of lower minds are typical of egotistical mediocrities. Overfed by the sweet delicacies of ambition and personal life, man accumulates gravitas. Kipling says that he is gathering “too much ego in his cosmos.” His “little personality constitutes the whole universe,” says Madame Blavatsky. Every veil of illusion that creates a sense of personal isolation, a feeling of separateness from All, must be torn asunder; and those who, through vanity and selfishness, go against the Divine Plan, cannot but incur the punishment of total annihilation. Life on earth is the result and consequence of that unseen, yet ever present autocrat and despot, called Selfishness and Egotism. The strongest will becomes impotent before the voice and authority of this self-appointed commander. Selfish is the life of a hermit, useless to all, and as useless to himself. “Self-culture” is for the solitary Hatha Yogis who shun the society of their fellow men. Pampering the animal self is triply distilled selfishness. The Hindu Yogi, who isolates himself in an impenetrable forest, and the Christian hermit who retires to the desert, are both accomplished egoists. The one seeks refuge in Nirvana, the other to save his soul from hell. Philosophical pantheism is based upon the correct understanding of the mysteries of being. Modern pessimism is yet another system of evil added by unhealthy fancy to an ever-growing sum of social evils, and a systematic slander of sentient life. Neither good nor evil would exist were it not for the light they throw upon each other. The bundle of Egotism disappears after death, as the costume of the part he played disappears from the actor’s body after he leaves the theatre at the end of the play and goes to bed. The slightest tinge of Selfishness precludes the employment of Spiritual Forces. For, unless the intention is entirely unalloyed, the spiritual will transform itself into the psychic, act on the astral plane, and dire results may be produced by it. The powers and forces of animal nature can equally be used by the selfish and revengeful, as by the unselfish and the all-forgiving. But the powers and forces of spirit lend themselves only to the pure in heart — and this is Divine Magic. The greatest crime that was ever perpetrated upon mankind was committed on that day when the first priest invented the first prayer with a selfish object in view. Prayer is an ennobling action when it is an intense feeling, an ardent desire rushing forth from our very heart for the good of other people, and when entirely detached from any selfish personal object; the craving for “the wilds beyond the heavens” is natural and holy in man, but on the condition of sharing that bliss with others. The heart of the purely selfish man, who cares not if all others rot so he can have pleasure in their pain, is softened for those near and dear to him — his family, relatives, and friends. His affections may even extend to religious fanaticism and even patriotic fervour in his country’s wars and political schemes, in the hope of recognition and reward. However sincere and ardent the faith of a theist, unless, while conforming his life to what he pleases to term “divine laws,” he gives precedence in his thoughts, first to the benefit that accrues from such a moral course of actions to his brother, and then only thinks of himself — he will remain a pious egotist. For belief in and fear of God will develop and grow in exact proportion to his Selfishness, his fear of punishment and bad results only for himself, without the least concern for his brother. Theism and atheism grow and develop together our reasoning powers, and become either fortified or weakened by reflection or deduction of evidence. The only God which Theosophists worship is Truth. The only devil they recognize and which they fight with unabated fury is the Satan of Egotism and unbridled passions. Alone our Western religion stands in its isolation, as a monument of the most gigantic human selfishness ever evolved by human brain, without one word in favour of, or for the protection of, the poor animal. Selfishness, envy, revenge, and malice are the hallmarks of sorcerers. The Roman Catholic “fathers” and clergy, particularly when pursuing their selfish objectives collectively, they have to be ranked among the adepts of the Black Art. In the crypts of the cyclopean Stonehenge in England, and its twin-brother Carnac of Brittany, curious scenes are taking place whenever there is a new convert in view. Stupefying is the power of blind faith in, and veneration of, ecclesiastical teachings. The conscience of the Roman Catholic priest is most likely at peace. He works personally for no selfish purpose, but with the object of “saving a soul” from “eternal damnation.” In his view, if Magic there be in it, it is holy, meritorious, and divine Magic. Whenever those priest-hypnotists want to control an individual, selected by them for conversion, they retire to an underground place, consecrated by them for such purposes and there, forming a circle, throw their combined will-power in the direction of that individual. This is the kind of ceremonial Magic and sorcery practiced at Stonehenge and elsewhere. The modern Symbologist is exceedingly clever only at detecting phallic worship and sexual emblems, even where none were ever meant. But for the true student of Occult Lore, White or Divine Magic could no more exist in Nature without its counterpart Black Magic, than day without night, whether these be of twelve hours or of six months’ duration. Magic is still in full sway amidst mankind, however blind the latter to its silent presence and pernicious influence, however ignorant society may be of its beneficent and maleficent effects. Most of those magicians are sorcerers by reason of their inherent selfishness, their revengeful natures, their envy, and malice. Man accumulates knowledge, invents religions and philosophies, but he himself remains still the same. In his ceaseless chase after wealth and honours and the will-o’-the-wisps of novelty, enjoyment, and ambition, man is ever moved by one chief motor — Vain Selfishness. We live in an era of the most triumphant display of human genius. But what good has all this great civilization and progress done to the millions in the world’s slums, and to the armies of the “great unwashed”? Selfishness is the chief prompter of our age and the boisterous rebel against Nature’s decrees. The student, at the very outset, learns that the alpha and the omega of life is selflessness, and knows that only in the sanctuary of merit and self-forgetfulness can the true meaning of life reveal itself to his eager heart. By sinking his consciousness deep into his heart he can reach that holy place, only when alone in silence and darkness. When the need for silence has grown great enough, he will turn to seek it even in the midst of the struggle with self, and he will find it. Living for self alone is full of pain and sorrow; living for others is full of divine bliss and joy for ever, free from bonds tied by mortal hands. There is no danger to him who is true and sincere, and especially unselfish. For he is thus prepared to meet any temptation. The pure at heart, who study with a view of perfecting themselves, need not have any fear; but rather those who make of the Sacred Science a sinful pretext for worldly motives, who should tremble. Conscience, God’s vicegerent in the soul, speaks no longer in man when the whispers of the still small voice within are stifled by the ever-increasing din and roar of selfishness. Space and time should be given to the self-appointed censors of morality to cleanse themselves of the ferocious selfishness, narrow-mindedness, and conceit which have made their playing at “the higher life” an almost comical travesty. It is that fierce and unashamed personal selfishness, the chief motor in the “struggle for life,” that is the sole cause of human starvation, and it’s vastly more powerful extension — national egoism and vanity — which stirs up wealthy nations and individuals to bury enormous capitals in the unproductive erection of gorgeous churches and temples, and to support a swarm of social drones called Cardinals and Bishops, who parasitize their subordinates and their flocks. Compassion felt but not acted upon is not altruism, it is bare hypocrisy. Spiritual perfection and knowledge can only be reached on the spiritual plane — in that state in which all sense of separateness, all selfishness, all feeling of personal interest and desire, has been merged in the wider consciousness of the humanity at large. No blind submission to the commands of another can be demanded, or would not be of any use. Each individual must learn for himself, through trial and suffering, to discriminate what is beneficial to humanity; and in proportion, as he begins transmuting his materiality to spirituality — lead to gold — his mind will open to receive the guidance of his Immortal Self within. and best friend of the mortal self. Impersonality is the ultimate aim of cosmic evolution. We have to work along with Nature, and not place ourselves in opposition to her inherent impulse, which must ultimately assert itself. To oppose it, must necessitate suffering, since a weaker force, in its egotism, tries to array itself against the mighty Universal Law. Whenever Truth is veiled for the many, it is unveiled for the few. Men had not created evil yet in those hoary days of bliss and purity, for they were more Godlike than human. When Selfishness was born out of desires and passions hitherto unknown, and superhuman knowledge and power were abused, it became necessary to limit the number of those who knew. Thus arose Initiation. The need of veiling Truth to protect it from desecration becoming more apparent with every generation, the thin veil used at first had to be gradually thickened according to the spread of I-ness and Me-ness, Luxury and Lust — and this led to the Mysteries. Our age is pre-eminently materialistic and pietistic. Our literature, our modern thought, and the so-called progress, run on these two parallel lines, so incongruously dissimilar, and yet both so popular and so very orthodox, each in its own way. He who presumes to draw a third line, as a hyphen of reconciliation between the two, has to be fully prepared for the worst. Compassion felt but not acted upon is not altruism, it is mere hypocrisy. Real self-development on esoteric lines requires action. The only way of sacrificing oneself “to the eternal” is by attuning to the collective spirit of life, embodied in and represented in its highest divine aspect by humanity alone. Vice and wickedness are an abnormal, unnatural manifestation, at this period of our human evolution. The fact that mankind was never more selfish and vicious than it is now — civilized nations having succeeded in making of the first an ethical characteristic, and of the second an art — is proof of the of the sorry state we are all in today. The Immortal Titan and True Philanthropist is moved by Compassion-Sacrifice; the mortal man, by Selfishness and Self-adoration in every instance. If man by suppressing, if not destroying, his selfishness and personality, only succeeds in knowing himself as he truly is, he will soon stand beyond all pain and misery, and beyond all the wear and tear of change, which is the chief originator of pain. Such a man will be physically of matter, he will move surrounded by matter, and yet he will live beyond and outside it. His body will be subject to change, but he himself will be entirely above it, and will experience everlasting life even while in temporary bodies of a short span. Happiness cannot exist as long as Egotism reigns supreme, and intellectual progress refuses to accept a subordinate position to ethical progress. And as long as Egotism will not give way to the Altruism, happiness will remain a Utopia. Listen to the voice of the Master: Your motive, being selfish, can only generate a double effect, good and bad, and will either nullify your good action, or turn it to another man’s profit. There is no happiness for one who is ever thinking of his little self and forgetting all other selves.
