Theosophy

Theosophical Tidal Wave

Details: Published: Wednesday, 17 November 2010 02:21

Sabine van Osta – Belgium

While in its earlier days the Theosophical Society was only one of the very few organizations to bring Eastern thought to the West, today it is one of the many voices in a vast choir. Yet, as a Society, we have as much right to exist as any other of its kind; and it is clear that we still have a strong, uplifting, and healing message to offer to the public at large, whose need for clarity and truth is ever-increasing. Even when at this moment some of the original reasons for establishing the TS have since long been achieved, much remains to be done to help one another convert parts of the outer and inner human wastelands into flourishing heavens of peace and sustainable spiritual prosperity.

Will and Desire

Details: Published: Wednesday, 17 November 2010 02:18

H. P. Blavatsky

From Lucifer 1.2 (October 1887): 96; Collected Writings 8:109

Will is the exclusive possession of man on this our plane of consciousness. It divides him from the brute in whom instinctive desire only is active.

Desire, in its widest application, is the one creative force in the Universe. In this sense it is indistinguishable from Will; but we men never know desire under this form while we remain only men. Therefore Will and Desire are here considered as opposed.

Thus Will is the offspring of the Divine, the God in man; Desire the motive power of the animal life.

Most of men live in and by desire, mistaking it for will. But he who would achieve must separate will from desire, and make his will the ruler; for desire is unstable and ever changing, while will is steady and constant.

Both will and desire are absolute creators, forming the man himself and his surroundings. But will creates intelligently—desire blindly and unconsciously. The man, therefore, makes himself in the image of his desires, unless he creates himself in the likeness of the Divine, through his will, the child of the light.

His task is twofold: to awaken the will, to strengthen it by use and conquest, to make it absolute ruler within his body; and, parallel with this, to purify desire.

Knowledge and will are the tools for the accomplishment of this purification.

The Theosophical Society as a Beacon of Light

Details: Published: Wednesday, 17 November 2010 01:57

Ali Ritsema – The Netherlands

The Theosophical Society has existed since 1875. We are now in the twenty-first century, 135 years later. This article is meant, not to look back to the past, but as a stepping stone to the future, to reconsider the role or the task of the Theosophical Society.

Obviously, the members of the Society determine its future, whether locally, nationally, or internationally. Consequently, when members have conflicting opinions about the Society’s role or task, the result will be confusion and chaos, and thus the Society will be weakened. This does not mean that there cannot be differences of opinion or different approaches—that is something else. But in order to build a strong future, it is important to have a clear idea about the central purpose or task of the Society. That’s why I would like to share what I have found in The Mahatma Letters about the task of the Society and to explore some aspects of it.

What Music Teaches Us about Presenting Theosophy

Details: Published: Friday, 17 September 2010 03:00

Edi Bilimoria – Australia

Music is not mere entertainment or just a pleasurable distraction when we have finished with the more serious side of life. Nor are opera, dance, and ballet just the elitist pursuit of the social dilettante. Music expresses the deepest core meaning of living and learning. For example, Handel, whose tremendous oratorio The Messiah has uplifted the consciousness of humanity for centuries, is supposed to have declared that his purpose was to make people better, not just to entertain them. As the first notes of the triumphant Hallelujah Chorus rang out at the London premier of The Messiah, King George II rose to his feet and remained standing until the end of the chorus. To this day, audiences spontaneously revere this Chorus by standing up.

Handel

Of course, music like any of the arts, may hinder the seeker. Sensual or nerve-jarring cacophony, such as that at a disco, is a hindrance and arguably even a physical and moral danger to a sensitive person. But as elevating feeling by music is a yoga path to a perfect connection between the divine and the human, music is not only a form of expression but a means of lifting thought and feeling to the higher realm of illumination.

Bach

Knowledge Comes in Visions

Details: Published: Monday, 13 September 2010 03:00

H. P. Blavatsky

Collected Writings 13:285 [A posthumously published fragment attributed to HPB in the Theosophist 31 (March, 1910): 685]

Knowledge comes in visions, first in dreams and then in pictures presented to the inner eye during meditation. Thus have I been taught the whole system of evolution, the laws of being and all else that I know—the mysteries of life and death, the workings of karma. Not a word was spoken to me of all this in the ordinary way, except, perhaps, by way of confirmation of what was thus given me—nothing taught me in writing. And knowledge so obtained is so clear, so convincing, so indelible in the impression it makes upon the mind, that all other sources of information, all other methods of teaching with which we are familiar dwindle into insignificance in comparison with this. One of the reasons why I hesitate to answer offhand some questions put to me is the difficulty of expressing in sufficiently accurate language things given to me in pictures, and comprehended by me by the pure Reason, as Kant would call it.

Theirs is a synthetic method of teaching: the most general outlines are given first, then an insight into the method of working, next the broad principles and notions are brought into view, and lastly begins the revelation of the minuter points.