Theosophy

Kenneth Small – USA

With some commentary based on Helena Blavatsky’s The Voice of the Silence

“Self-Knowledge is of loving deeds the child” (1)

In a current media editorial, it was recently expressed (September 2025) as a wake-up call, the writer advocated: “Don’t express empathy without action”.  This is a timely insight applicable in today’s fractious world conditions, filled with contentious polarizing and competing ideas largely motivated by the rush for personal power. Conversely, we may say that it is imperative that “we don’t take action without empathy.”  Reflecting on this conundrum, what more all-encompassing insights may the Wisdom Traditions offer for understanding ‘empathy in action’ today?

The classic mystical treatise, The Voice of the Silence gives some deeper, at times paradoxical insights in poetic language and direct aphorisms:

Sow kindly acts and thou shalt reap their fruition. Inaction in a deed of mercy becomes an action in a deadly sin. Thus saith the Sage. Shalt thou abstain from action? Not so shall gain thy soul her freedom. To reach Nirvana one must reach Self-Knowledge, and Self-Knowledge is of loving deeds the child. (1)

Rewritten in prose and unpacking a little:

• Kindness brings the same qualitative results, more kindness. As the Dalai Lama has often repeated: “Kindness is my religion.”
• Empathy or compassion without action (inner or outer) is incomplete. When wedded with action, a new ‘soul freedom’ arises spontaneously.
• Ultimate Awakening (Nirvana) or even its smallest glimmer of ‘pin pricks’ and ‘points’ of numinous ‘peak experience’ (synderesis) arises from ‘Self-Knowledge’ but this is a special kind of Self-Knowledge which is one with compassion in action. (loving deeds)

Looking into these few lines of wisdom further and their meaning we find a series of simple, yet profound essential aphorisms:

1. Kindly acts have a qualitative fruition that benefits the whole which is beyond our limited ego awareness. Our actions and activities are bigger than we can see or know. To understand and see clearly invites the need for a very expanded ‘mirror’ to reflect to us the necessary insight required. How may we invoke this ‘greater mirror’, often referred to in the wisdom traditions as ‘higher self’ or the ‘selfless self’ in Zen?  As stated elsewhere in the VOS, we need ‘breadth and depth and points’ to guide us; breadth of Vision, depth of awareness, with ‘points’ of awakened higher or ‘buddhi’ insight. This ‘expanded mirroring’ process requires stillness and times and modes of Silence to nurture this view. ‘Self-knowledge’ arises spontaneously when engaged in ‘selfless activity.’ 
2. Situations presented to us and inviting compassionate action may arise in the smallest events of our day from washing the dishes to watering our garden. Being open to these breakthrough opportunities without any expectation of the results opens the doorway to more liminal and ‘Awake’ inner awareness. Overriding and neglecting them brings a karmic reaction that has a regressive binding consequence to the whole. There is a greater wholeness to be discovered in the present when we are genuinely one with each timeless moment.  
3. Retreating from compassionate action based on a fear-based ego fixated ‘too risky for me’ view – with its self-isolative ‘cocooning’– inhibits and compromises the underlying conditions for real ‘freedom’ or ‘liberation’.
4. Nirvana – the ultimate union with our spiritual Source – requires ‘self-knowledge’. Balancing ‘head’ and ‘heart’ is essential on the path to inner Awakening to our inner Source. This ‘self-knowledge’ opens us up to opportunities within our ordinary events of day-to-day living. Nothing unordinary or paranormal is needed. A flower may open a vista of infinite joy.
5. ‘Self-Knowledge’ equals ‘compassionate activity’ and not mere ‘head learning’. Expressing compassionate action while engaging in our daily activity invites a balance of ‘head’ and ‘heart’ learning. Memorization and conceptual learning are not sufficient to reach the depths of our human psyche and others. To reach beyond mere brain-mind limitations is within our innate potential. 
6. Nourishing altruistic motivation is the pivotal point of inner transformation on the path of inner Awakening, the central essence of the Wisdom Traditions. As depth psychologist Carl Jung said: “…when love retreats power advances”; with the inverse true that where unconditional love is present, ‘personal power obsessions’ dissolve. This is true not only outwardly but within each person’s psyche as well. Through our meditation in action and deep motivation for a greater benefit for humanity and the whole of life, the Wayfarer cuts through these regressive ‘power’ dynamics. Within inter group dynamics this is the leavening ‘force’ of genuine diplomacy that opens avenues for dissolving rigid protectionism, opening doors for harmonious conflict resolution. Owning any vestiges of ‘self-shame’ dissolves and prejudicial scapegoating, ends blaming the disowned, shunned and rejected ‘other’, bringing harmony to relationships both personal and those often hidden within the larger collective group.  
7. “Self-knowledge is of loving deeds the child.” (2) Self-knowledge spontaneously arises from deeply engaged altruistic motivation. This is in practice engaged in our daily activities when interacting with the homeless beggar, store clerk, bus driver, farmer, gardener and car washer who become emissaries of the Bodhisattva’s wisdom and compassion we may be receptive to and engage with.  A friend in a frenzied rush almost running across the city center to make what he thought was an important transactional appointment on his work break passed the homeless beggar whose wild eyes caught his attention and his words suddenly cut through him saying: “What we resist persists.” Stunned, realizing he had completely lost his Center, he slowed his pace, looked around, feeling redeemed in the sublime moment by the homeless man’s ‘bodhisattva’ message. He paused, breathed deeply, dropped his ‘stress’ and with a new calmness continued his way, more Awake. Thus, the truism that, “Chelaship [discipleship] is a matter of being, not of talking about being.” (2)

Gradually the Wayfarer’s inner View shifts from externals and the having, grasping for ‘things’ or even the insatiable drive for mere ‘information’ and ‘mere facts’, to the inner confidence of nourishing that unique quality of being that aligns with compassionate activity. Expressing compassion in daily activities moves to engage broader circles of the often avoided and rejected. This is reflected both internally and outwardly in our life, growing in an organic and natural way.

The following Sufi story recounts this shifting of View of the Wayfarer from limited ‘self’ to ‘selfless Self’ on the path of Awakening. The story goes like this:

You remember the beautiful Sufi legend, how the Soul, wandering in search of truth, came finally to the House of God and knocked at the portal. Then in answer to the knock, thunder reverberated through the spaces of Heaven, and God called out: "Who art thou?" And the Soul replied: "I." And God answered: "I know not I." Then the Soul wandered again for many ages in tribulation and sorrow, and finally it came anew, and once more knocked at the portal of the House of God. And the voice of God called out and said: "Who art thou?" And the Soul replied: "Thou." And the voice of God then answered and said: "Enter into thine own, for we are One." No distinction there between I and Thou — a beautiful legend imbodying one of the profoundest concepts of the ancient wisdom. (3)

Sources

1. The Voice of the Silence p. 30-31 by Helena Blavatsky – London 1889 pp.30-31

2. The Esoteric Path by G. de Purucker p. 59

3. Recounted by G. de Purucker in Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy p. 226