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THEOSOPHY AND SPIRITUAL CULTURE BY JOHN SCHOFIELD




Perhaps there are some who will object to the title of this paper and say there can be no such thing as Spiritual culture for Spirit is perfect on its own plane. That there are some qualities that we call spiritual that manifest themselves in our lives will not be disputed, I think.

St. Paul calls these qualities "Fruits of the Spirit," and he enumerates some of them, as, "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control," and he urges the culture of these Spiritual qualities, for in no one of us is their expression perfect. This is what I mean by Spiritual Culture. Let us bear in mind, however, that we are continually using words of which we cannot give the exact meaning, for words are not things but pictures of things, and as there can be no perfect picture of anything, so there can be no perfect embodiment of truth in material letters.

Colors, even in the hand of a genius, are powerless to give us a perfect picture of a man or a child, so letters fail to tell perfectly what the soul thinks. The painter can depict a log or a stone far more perfectly than he can give us a Christ or a Madonna. So in language we catch the meaning of common things, but when we try to express the great things of the Soul, the sounds of vowels and consonant, like the colors of the artists, refuse to do full duty.

The glory and beauty of the word "Spirit" is that, while its final meaning evades us, it still exhales some fragrant qualities of itself, and Spiritual Culture is so living and acting that more and more of these qualities may manifest themselves in our lives. Spiritual Culture is the culture of the highest in us, for Spirit stands for the divine in man.

The love of food and drink, of riches and war does not spring from this divine essence in man, but the love of truth and honor, of benevolence and beauty does, and the culture of these loves is Spiritual Culture. The greater part of the language of the street, the shop and the farm is about the instrument used by the spirit, but when we leave these and come into the presence of the poet and the philosopher, or enter the solitude of the worshipper, another language is spoken, for we are now dwelling among the highest things.

When a man lifts himself above the appetites of the flesh and deals in the pure and the beautiful, he has entered the lofty realm of the Spirit. Into this realm entered Plato studying eternal beauty, and Confucius reaching up to the highest, as well as Joseph of Arimathea coming to a tomb to embalm the body of a Master he so deeply reverenced. So, too, Thomas a Kempis, standing in an unclouded world, was conscious only of Immortality.

All the questions that vexed the church and made food for ambition and strife were far down in the noisy vale beneath the dreamer's feet. All local and temporary dogmas and disputations are left out of his book and only the voice of the spirit is heard there. John Bunyan was of the same school and his Pilgrim's Progress lifts us out of the realm of the dry catechism into a world of feeling and beauty.

The Wicket Gate, the Delectable Mountains, the House Beautiful, the Valley of Humiliation are all great visions that take us away from quarrel some intellects and lift us into the realm of the spirit. To these names we may add many others such as Fenelon, Madam Guyon, George Fox, and a noble host of poets for whom, and by whom life was transfigured.

Great religious leaders have not always been noted for spiritual culture. Calvin was marked by a strong and analytical mind, but he offended half the world by his strong affirmations and denials. The same is true of Luther, of Jonathan Edwards and others. They were all great and useful men in the field of temporary battle rather than in the field of perpetual peace. Calvin was made great like William of Orange and the Duke of Wellington by battling against the foes of the human race.

The makers of creeds and builders of systems generally stir up hatred and strife, while men of spiritual culture are makers of peace, moving in an atmosphere of love, lifted above all these little local questions, and like the sun pouring light on the evil and the good.

The man who mixes paints or tunes a musical instrument can never merit the praise or love given by society to one who paints the picture or makes the organ lift us into the third heaven. So in religion the dealers in creeds and forms can never equal in goodness or divineness those who reveal to mankind the religion of the soul. The literalists and sectarians are only mixers of paints which they cannot use, or custodians of ideas as a slave might be of a casket of jewels or a box of gold coin.

Bunyan was happy in gaol; Fenelon was joyful in exile; Madam Guyon gave away her fortune to the poor — because spiritual culture had lifted them into an atmosphere where riches and honor and gratifications of the lower desires became small and insignificant, and earth itself great, only as the home of the soul. When the spirit rules, the clamor of gold and office, and appetite is silenced, their lurid and fatal eloquence has no longer any charm. The feet are lifted above the street and placed on a mountain full of God's angels; as one of our great poets has said, "On every height there lies repose."

It is not the repose of sleep or an easy existence of inaction, but a repose that comes from the sublimity of the landscape and the purity of the air. The heights are everywhere and voices are ever calling us to "Go up higher."

In classifying physical beauty we make distinctions between a violet and an oak, between a cascade with its murmur and mist and a cathedral with its spires and arches; between a trailing vine and a range of mountains. With our change of feeling we change our words and to the rose we say beautiful, to the oak, grand; to the violet, pretty; and to the mountain, sublime.

So while humanity is one, we divide its attractiveness into many parts and say of some, they are witty; of some, pretty ; of others, beautiful ; and of still others, learned; but while the heart is filled with admiration for these it sees still another class rising above all these grades of moral and mental greatness, and we do not speak of this as beautiful but as sublime. In this group we see men and women of all ages.

Wealth is here a mere accident whose presence or absence counts for nothing, for Jesus and Zeno were poor, Marcus Aurelius was rich. Personal appearance goes for nothing for Socrates and Saint Paul were both without charm of face or form. Ancestry is nothing, for Victoria was born to be a Queen and Epictetus a slave.  Differences of creed are excluded, for Thomas a Kempis was a Romanist, George Fox a Protestant and Abraham Lincoln an eclectic. We may be neither rich nor beautiful, neither witty nor learned, but we may hear the voice calling us to the heights.

Does Theosophy give us any help, any guidance in reaching these lofty heights?

Does it give any directions for the culture of the spiritual powers?


It surely does, for that is its main reason for being. To help man to know himself, to master himself, to unfold his divine powers, and to help forward the evolution of humanity is the great work to which the Masters have devoted themselves, and the Theosophical Society is one of their schools of Spiritual Culture. The central and fundamental principle of the Theosophical Society is Universal Brotherhood based on the "spiritual identity of all souls with the Oversoul."

And it makes this proclamation:

« To all men and women of whatever caste, creed, race, or religious belief, who aim at the fostering of peace, gentleness, and unselfish regard for another, and the acquisition of such knowledge of men and nature as shall tend to the elevation and advancement of the human race, it sends most friendly greeting and freely proffers its services. It joins hands with all religions and religious bodies whose efforts are directed to the purification of men's thoughts and the bettering of their ways, and it avows its harmony therewith.

To all scientific societies and individual searchers after wisdom upon whatever plane, and by whatever righteous means pursued, it is and will be grateful for such discovery and unfoldment of Truth as shall serve to announce and confirm a scientific basis for ethics. And lastly it invites to membership those who, seeking a higher life hereafter, would learn to know the path to tread in this. »


"Knowledge is power," and the Theosophical Society is constantly seeking to impart to its members knowledge that will answer questions of most profound and vital interest, such as:

How did we come here?

What have been the stages of progress through which we have passed?

And what is our future destiny?


The doctrines of Reincarnation and Karma are keys that unlock many of the mysteries of human history and progress, and the revelation of the sevenfold nature of man, and the seven planes of being throws a flood of light on the nature of man, the uses of each part and the best methods of culture and development.

The New Testament makes man a trinity (body, soul, and spirit) but Theosophy makes a finer analysis into seven parts, putting the physical at the bottom and the spiritual at the top as the New Testament does, showing us how to subordinate the lower to the higher, and urging us to make the spiritual supreme.

In order that the spiritual may become supreme the whole lower nature must be brought into tune, just as a piano must be tuned in every string before it can respond with perfect harmony to the hand of the master player.

Theosophy having explained the body to us has given us the best methods of physical culture — a culture that will enable the soul to use it as an instrument and a medium for expressing itself. There must also be a wise and careful training of the intellect, and Theosophy shows us how to train it so that it will be subservient to the forces of the soul.*

(* See Theosophical Quarterly, October, 1909, page 177 and January, 1910, page 279.)


The intellect must never be master but always the servant of the spirit. For those who earnestly desire to unfold their spiritual powers so that they may the better serve their fellow men there are four books, each of which is unique, and all of them helpful (and in my opinion necessary) to guide our feet into the path and keep us in it.

First of these I put Light on the Path, whose sub-title reads, "A treatise written for the personal use of those who are ignorant of the Eastern Wisdom, and who desire to enter within its influence."  In many ways it is the most remarkable book the Masters have given us.

The second of these is The Voice of the Silence, translated by our great Teacher, H. P. Blavatsky from a very ancient text book called The Book of Golden Precepts. The book as we have it is made up of three "Fragments,"  I. The Voice of the Silence; II. The Two Paths; III. The Seven Portals, the whole of it being rich in spiritual instruction, and is the daily text-book of thousands of theosophists who find it indispensable for spiritual culture.

The third of these books is the Bhagavad Gita, which means, we are told, "The songs of the Master."  There are many editions and translations of this remarkable poem but the one I have found most helpful is Mr. Charles Johnston's translation with commentary, first published in the Theosophical Quarterly, but now for sale by our Secretary, in a handy volume.

The fourth book I put last because last published, but so far as spiritual helpfulness goes I have found Fragments by Cave much more inspiring than the Bhagavad Gita. It is a never failing fountain of inspiration, and when at home I want it always within reach, and when I go away I would rather leave behind my New Testament than the Fragments.

Take sentences like these:

« It is not what you say and do, but what you are that tells, and that will leave its ineffaceable mark upon each character you meet as upon all time. The soul desires to express itself in its reflection, your life. So live that it may do so. So think and act that you may become a channel for higher things to descend to the lower planes. Meditate on things you want to know. Seek all knowledge within yourself, do not go without. You understand what is meant by this; not that books should be neglected, but that information obtained from them should be drawn within, sifted, tested there. Study all things in this light and the most physical will at the same time lead to the most spiritual knowledge. »
(pp. 42, 43)

On every page there are messages as stimulating as this, and something suited to all moods whether of sadness or joy.


If after a year or more of diligent study of theosophical teachings any soul sincerely and earnestly desires to consecrate itself more fully to spiritual living it may knock, and the door of the Inner School will open.

There he will find new teachers and new opportunities — a new world; he will find new trials through which he will learn new lessons, and if faithful may come to a fullness of realization of which he has no conception now; he will find new power and new strength to rise above the mists and confusions of the lower life.

Some things that he now takes on trust he will come to know and will be so filled with wonder, reverence, and gratitude that he will want to say with the Patriarch Job, "I have heard of thee with the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth thee, wherefore I abhor myself and repent."

In short, we find in Theosophy a guide to a spiritual culture that makes life broad, generous and beautiful, setting us free from the little and making us partakers of the Life Immortal.

JOHN SCHOFIELD.


(Theosophical Quarterly, Abril 1910, vol. 7, p.375-379)





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