Christina
Rossetti’s well-known lines:
Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Does the journey take the whole long day?
From morn till night, my friend.
Are like an epitome of the life of those
who are truly treading the path which leads to higher things. Whatever
differences are to be found in the various presentations of the Esoteric
Doctrine, as in every age it donned a fresh garment, different both in hue and
texture to that which preceded; yet in every one of them we find the fullest
agreement upon one point—the road to spiritual development.
One only inflexible rule has been ever
binding upon the neophyte, as it is binding now — the complete subjugation of the
lower nature by the higher. From the Vedas
and Upanishads to the recently
published Light on the Path, search
as we may through the bibles of every race and cult, we find but one only way, —
hard, painful, troublesome, by which man can gain the true spiritual insight.
And how can it be otherwise since all
religions and all philosophies are but the variants of the first teachings of
the One Wisdom, imparted to men at the beginning of the cycle by the Planetary
Spirit?
The true Adept, the developed man, must, we
are always told, become — he cannot be made. The process is therefore one of
growth through evolution, and this must necessarily involve a certain amount of
pain.
The main cause of pain lies in our
perpetually seeking the permanent in the impermanent, and not only seeking, but
acting as if we had already found the unchangeable, in a world of which the one
certain quality we can predicate is constant change, and always, just as we
fancy we have taken a firm hold upon the permanent, it changes within our very grasp,
and pain results.
Again, the idea of growth involves also the
idea of disruption, the inner being must continually burst through its
confining shell or encasement, and such a disruption must also be accompanied
by pain, not physical but mental and intellectual.
And this is how it is, in the course of our
lives; the trouble that comes upon us is always just the one we feel to be the
hardest that could possibly happen — it is always the one thing we feel we
cannot possibly bear.
If we look at it from a wider point of
view, we shall see that we are trying to burst through our shell at its one
vulnerable point; that our growth, to be real growth, and not the collective
result of a series of excrescences, must progress evenly throughout, just as
the body of a child grows, not first the head and then a hand, followed perhaps
by a leg; but in all directions at once, regularly and imperceptibly.
Man’s tendency is to cultivate each part
separately, neglecting the others in the meantime — every crushing pain is
caused by the expansion of some neglected part, which expansion is rendered
more difficult by the effects of the cultivation bestowed elsewhere.
(Observation: the human is a structurally
complex being since he is composed of several principles such as: a physical
body, an energetic system, a mind, a psyche, etc.
So the ideal is to carry out
a holistic development that encompassing to all aspects of your being, but usually
one aspect is developed much more than others and that is why life then has to
pressure the person to also develop the other aspects of his being.)
Evil is often the result of over-anxiety,
and men are always trying to do too much, they are not content to leave well
alone, to do always just what the occasion demands and no more, they exaggerate
every action and so produce karma to be worked out in a future birth.
One of the subtlest forms of this evil is
the hope and desire of reward. Many there are who, albeit often unconsciously,
are yet spoiling all their efforts by entertaining this idea of reward, and
allowing it to become an active factor in their lives and so leaving the door
open to anxiety, doubt, fear, despondency — failure.
The goal of the aspirant for spiritual
wisdom is entrance upon a higher plane of existence; he is to become a new man,
more perfect in every way than he is at present, and if he succeeds, his
capabilities and faculties will receive a corresponding increase of range and
power, just as in the visible world we find that each stage in the evolutionary
scale is marked by increase of capacity.
This is how it is that the Adept becomes
endowed with marvelous powers that have been so often described, but the main
point to be remembered is, that these powers are the natural accompaniments of
existence on a higher plane of evolution, just as the ordinary human faculties
are the natural accompaniments of existence on the ordinary human plane.
Many persons seem to think that adeptship
is not so much the result of radical development as of additional construction;
they seem to imagine that an Adept is a man who, by going through a certain
plainly defined course of training, consisting of minute attention to a set of
arbitrary rules, acquires first one power and then another; and when he has
attained a certain number of these powers is forthwith dubbed an adept.
Acting on this mistaken idea they fancy
that the first thing to be done towards attaining adeptship is to acquire
“powers” — clairvoyance and the power of leaving the physical body and
travelling to a distance, are among those which fascinate the most.
To those who wish to acquire such powers
for their own private advantage, we have nothing to say; they fall under the
condemnation of all who act for purely selfish ends. But there are others, who,
mistaking effect for cause, honestly think that the acquirement of abnormal
powers is the only road to spiritual advancement.
These look upon our Society as merely the
readiest means to enable them to gain knowledge in this direction, considering
it as a sort of occult academy, an institution established to afford facilities
for the instruction of would-be miracle-workers.
In spite of repeated protests and warnings,
there are some minds in whom this notion seems ineradicably fixed, and they are
loud in their expressions of disappointment when they find that what had been
previously told them is perfectly true; that the Society was founded to teach
no new and easy paths to the acquisition of “powers”; and that its only mission
is to re-kindle the torch of truth so long extinguished for all but the very
few, and to keep that truth alive by the formation of a fraternal union of mankind,
the only soil in which the good seed can grow.
The Theosophical Society does indeed desire
to promote the spiritual growth of every individual who comes within its
influence, but its methods are those of the ancient Rishis, its tenets those of the oldest Esotericism; it is no
dispenser of patent nostrums composed of violent remedies which no honest
healer would dare to use.
In this connection we would warn all our
members, and others who are seeking spiritual knowledge, to beware of persons
offering to teach them easy methods of acquiring psychic gifts; such gifts (laukika) are indeed comparatively easy
of acquirement by artificial means, but fade out as soon as the nerve-stimulus
exhausts itself. The real seership and adeptship which is accompanied by true
psychic development (lokothra), once
reached, is never lost.
It appears that various societies have
sprung into existence since the foundation of the Theosophical Society,
profiting by the interest the latter has awakened in matters of psychic
research, and endeavoring to gain members by promising them easy acquirement of
psychic powers. In India we have long been familiar with the existence of hosts
of sham ascetics of all descriptions, and we fear that there is fresh danger in
this direction, here, as well as in Europe and America. We only hope that none
of our members, dazzled by brilliant promises, will allow themselves to be
taken in by self-deluded dreamers, or, it may be, willful deceivers.
To show that some real necessity exists for
our protests and warnings, we may mention that we have recently seen, enclosed
in a letter from Benares, copies of an advertisement just put forth by a
so-called “Mahatma.” He calls for “eight men and women who know English and any
of the Indian vernaculars well”; and concludes by saying that “those who want
to know particulars of the work and the amount of pay” should apply to his
address, with enclosed postage stamps!
Upon the table before us, lies a reprint of
The Divine Pymander, published in
England last year, and which contains a notice to “. . . Theosophists, who may
have been disappointed in their expectations of Sublime Wisdom being freely
dispensed by HINDOO MAHATMAS”; cordially inviting them to send in their names
to the Editor who will see them “after a short probation,” admitted into an
Occult Brotherhood who teach freely and WITHOUT RESERVE to all they find worthy
to receive.” Strangely enough, we find in the very volume in question Hermes
Trismegistus saying:
« For this only, O Son, is the way to Truth, which our progenitors
travelled in; and by which making their journey, they at length attained to the
good. It is a venerable way and plain, but hard and difficult for the soul to
go in, that is in the body.
Wherefore
we must look warily to such kind of people, that being in ignorance they may be
less evil for fear of that which is hidden and secret. »
It is perfectly true that some Theosophists
have been (through nobody’s fault but their own) greatly disappointed because
we have offered them no short cut to Yoga
Vidya, and there are others who wish for practical work. And, significantly
enough, those who have done least for the Society are loudest in fault-finding.
Now, why do not these persons and all our
members who are able to do so, take up the serious study of mesmerism?
Mesmerism has been called the Key to the
Occult Sciences, and it has this advantage that it offers peculiar
opportunities for doing good to mankind. If in each of our branches we were
able to establish a homeopathic dispensary with the addition of mesmeric
healing, such as has already been done with great success in Bombay, 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.
There are others of our branches, besides
the one at Bombay, that have done good work in this direction, but there is
room for infinitely more to be done than has yet been attempted. And the same
is the case in the various other departments of the Society’s work. It would be
a good thing if the members of each branch would put their heads together and
seriously consult as to what tangible steps they can take to further the declared
objects of the Society.
In too many cases the members of the
Theosophical Society content themselves with a somewhat superficial study of
its books, without making any real contribution to its active work. If the
Society is to be a power for good in this and other lands, it can only bring
about this result by the active co-operation of every one of its members, and
we would earnestly appeal to each of them to consider carefully what
possibilities of work are within his power, and then to earnestly set about
carrying them into effect. Right thought is a good thing, but thought alone
does not count for much unless it is translated into action.
There is not a single member in the Society
who is not able to do something to aid the cause of truth and universal
brotherhood; it only depends on his own will, to make that something an
accomplished fact.
Above all we would reiterate the fact, that
the Society is no nursery for incipient adepts; teachers cannot be provided to
go round and give instruction to various branches on the different subjects
which come within the Society’s work of investigation; the branches must study
for themselves; books are to be had, and the knowledge there put forth must be
practically applied by the various members thus will be developed self-reliance,
and reasoning powers.
We urge this strongly; for appeals have
reached us that any lecturer sent to branches must be practically versed in
experimental psychology and clairvoyance (i.e., looking into magic mirrors and
reading the future, etc., etc.).
Now we consider that such experiments
should originate amongst members themselves to be of any value in the
development of the individual or to enable him to make progress in his “uphill”
path, and therefore earnestly recommend our members to try for themselves.
(The
Theosophist, May 1885, vol. VI, p.187-188)
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