The theosophical quarterly. Vol. 26

' % VOL. XXVI, No. 1 r> ; >. - JULY rca 1928 No 101 PUBLISHED BV THE THEOSOPHIGAL SOCIETY A2, - KVAR» wjtisa.- OPHI UL 0.0 o . The Theosophical Quarterly Subscription price, $1.00 per annum; single copies — Published by The Theosophical Society at 64 Washington Mews, New York, N. Y. July; October; January; April Address ,11 » m mume..io»» to F. O. Box M, Station O. New York JULY, 1928 The 7 heosophical Society , as such , is not responsible for any opin declaration in this magazine , by whomsoever expressed , unless contained official document. Self-Glorification or Self-Conquest I N the first two Gospels, there is a story of gentle' irony at the expense of the non-discerning disciples. The Master had entered into a ship, to sail across the Sea of Galilee. The disciples had forgotten to take bread, neither had they in the ship with them more than one loaf. And the Master charged them, saying, Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. And the disciples reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because we have no bread. One wonders which of them first saw the point of this delightful and yet pathetic incident; to whom do we owe its recording for posterity, to teach us not to be too literal minded? A like problem arises regarding the discourse of the Buddha with which we are concerned, and which also warns against the leaven of the Pharisees: against those who pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, and omit the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith; who love salutations in the marketplaces, and for a pretence make long prayers. In the story to be narrated, it is not certain to whose excellent memory and fine sense of humour we owe the record of the Buddha’s words. Tradi¬ tion, in this matter wholly to be relied on, tells us that, at the first great Council of his disciples, shortly after his bodily death, the great disciples recalled and recorded his discourses, while on the beloved disciple Ananda was laid the duty of putting each discourse in its proper setting, restoring the CONTENTS OF VOL. XXVI, NO. 1 July, 1928 NOTES AND COMMENTS. THEOSOPHY.*. A BACKGROUND FOR CHELASIIIP. WHY I JOINED THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. CHHANDOGYA UPANISHAD. ON THE SCREEN OF TIME. LETTERS TO STUDENTS. T S. ACTIVITIES; Convention Report; Letters of Greeting REVIEWS. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. THE THEOSOPHICAL dulihi \ . , . , . • ,+ t i,| s Society is to form the nucleus of a The P*l nclpa ’ J“ d “ f Humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, Universal ro ^ subsidiary ob j ec ts are; The study of ancient and modern caste or colo . sciences and the demonstration of the importance oShstud^Tnd the investigation of the unexplained laws of nature and the psychical powers latent in man. Entered a. aecond^am matter September S. .»«. « th. °®“ « N ' W Y ° rk ' N ' Y ” Act oI March 3, i*79* Copyright, 1928, by The Theosophical Society theosophical quarterly - T -« *£*■*£ ” =:= sense of humour. . ^ concerned, it is not recorded that the In the discourse with whlC * ™ 6 Buddha is depicted as going alone to visit beloved Ananda is present. T evidently filled a conspicuous place a group of self-mortifying ascetics. ^ in the India of to-day; India of S » • bad cl spite. -» the most sensational of these • M ' tbe „„ charac ter drawme and evidently fashionable then, as . those tha t we find in others © the keen humour of this story reC order, and we may conjecture either which Ananda may well have bee or t hat the Buddha himself that the beloved disciple accompanied hi ^ & delighted auditor, told the story on his return ^ Master was living at Rajagnha, on Once upon a time, says t y ’ . ,. t a ce rtain mendicant pilgrim, Vulture Peak. A, that “no * ^diag in the park:«f Nigrodha by name, that is, Ba y wag taken from a n Indian fig tree, devout Queen Udumbanka, whos in al i three thousand pilgrims, with him were many mendicant P R ’ - ha a pious householder, whose Now it happened that there ^ arden tly desired to see the Budd a. name was Sandhana, a > g on d the householder : And this came into the mind M t {or t he Master is in retirement, ■•This is not a fitting time to see the • ^ disciplining their minds nor is it a good time to visit his . , { j were t0 go to Queen a nd hearts, for they also are ^ ^ dweUing there?” Fig Tree’s park, to visit the pilgnm B * y ’ and incidentally draws an tL «ta narrator finds a '“f ^ he tells us. forthwith set outline portrait ol the b“f» f“ Banyan Then follows one out for the park, to pay his visit totn P IP {ramedi whoS e stately d .ho* set passages, ^h”™To the B^dhist dLourses. W. «. repetition gives a peculiar c , m the wide rest-house ol the that the self-mortifymg pilgrim* ga in debate concerning Queen’s park, were not as weALring, with a shrill and righteousness and the law, • kinds 0 f common tales, such, for mighty noise, they were rel g ta ik of ministers, talk of armies, example, as talk of kings, ta o d drink an d garments and couches, talk of terror, talk of war, talk “ k °f kinships and cars, of villages and towns It is exactly like the mental mrfley of thmg^ ^ ^ ^ ._ ida „ tica i columns of a modem newspaper a ^ Qrchestral enumeration in the r; ! wis <■ *“ of the Book of Daniel. NOTES AND COMMENTS The pilgrim Banyan, who seems to have been somewhat better than his mendicant companions, saw Bond, the householder, approaching from afar, and tried to quiet the noisy crew: “Gentlemen!” he said, “Gentlemen, be less noisy! Make less noise, for here is one of the ascetic Gotama’s adherents coming, the householder Bond. White-robed adherents of the ascetic Gotama dwell at Rajagriha, and this householder Bond is one of them. And these worthies delight in freedom from noise, they are well bred in their quietude, they speak in praise of quietude; perhaps, if he saw that our assembly was free from noise, it might occur to him to pay us a visit.” Whether from shame, or merely through curiosity, the mendicant pilgrims consented to be silent. Then indeed the householder Bond came up to where the pilgrim Banyan was, and, coming up to the pilgrim Banyan, he saluted him with courtesy and politeness, and sat down beside him. Seating himself beside the pilgrim Banyan, the householder Bond spoke thus: “Far different is the manner in which these sectarian gentlemen comport themselves when they are assembled together, roaring with shrill and mighty noise, relating many kinds of common tales, such, for example, as talk of kings, robbers and ministers,” and so on, through the whole imposing list of themes, “far different is this indeed from the practice of our Master, who abides in the forest, seated in meditation, seeking quietude and silence, pondering wisdom, with heart intent on hidden things, devoted to retirement.” Nettled by this mild reproof, the pilgrim Banyan said: “Go to, householder! Knowest thou with whom the ascetic Gotama confers? With whom does he hold converse? With whom does he clarify his understanding? The understanding of the ascetic Gotama is injured by this habit of solitude, the ascetic Gotama does not know how to conduct a meeting, he cannot carry on a debate, he is really not in the current of things. Your ascetic Gotama, with his habit of solitude, his ignorance of meetings and debates, his limited outlook, is like a cow going round in circles! Look you, householder, if the ascetic Gotama should come to this assembly, we should shut him up with a single question, we should bowl him over like an empty water-jar!” So the pilgrim Banyan warmed himself up with intemperate speech. And one may doubt whether in the whole cycle of Buddhist scriptures, there is a finer touch of humour than this. For this passage, like all these records, is to be recited aloud by devoted disciples, whose reverence for the Buddha knows no limits. Consider with what a twinkle of the heart they would describe their august Master walking in circles like a cow, and then consider the fine dramatic irony of the sequel. For we are told that the Master, through the principle of divine hearing, pure and surpassing that of men, heard this edifying talk of the pilgrim Banyan and the householder Bond, and that, hearing, he straightway descended from Vulture Peak and came to the bank of the lotus pond where the peacocks 4 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY were fed, and walked to and fro, taking the air on the lawn of the peacocks. Then the pilgrim Banyan beheld the Master taking the air on the lawn of the peacocks, beside the lotus pond, and, seeing him, thus addressed his company: “Gentlemen, be less noisy! Gentlemen, make less noise! There is the ascetic Gotama, walking to and fro, taking the air, on the lawn of the peacocks beside the lotus pond. And that worthy delights in freedom from noise, he speaks in praise of quietude; should he see how imbued with quietude is this our assembly, he might think well to come and pay us a visit. And should the ascetic Gotama come to our assembly, we should ask him this question:— What, worthy Master, is the Law of Righteousness which the Master teaches to his adherents, trained in which the Master’s adherents win serenity, recog¬ nizing this Law as the firm foundation of their spiritual life?” We are told that the pilgrims became silent; perhaps they cherished a delighted hope of seeing the Buddha walking in circles like a cow, or bowled over like an empty water-jar. Straightway the Master came over to where the pilgrim Banyan was. And the pilgrim Banyan said this to the Master: “Let the worthy Master come! Welcome is the worthy Master! The worthy Master has been a long time making up his mind to come to us! Let the worthy Master be seated; this seat is prepared for him!” The Master seated himself on the seat that was prepared. The pilgrim also seated himself on a low seat beside him. Then the Master said to the pilgrim Banyan, seated by him: “On what topic, Banyan, were you engaged here? What was the theme that was interrupted?” The pilgrim Banyan, saying nothing whatever about a cow walking in circles, or a rolling water-jar, thus answered the Master: “We saw the Master walking to and fro on the lawn of the peacocks beside the lotus pond, taking the air, and, seeing him, we said, Should the Master visit this our assembly, we should ask him this question:—What, worthy Master, is the Law of Righteousness which the Master teaches to his adherents, trained in which the Master’s adherents win serenity, recognizing this Law as the firm foundation of their spiritual life? This is the topic that was inter¬ rupted when the Master arrived.” “It is difficult, Banyan, for one of other views, for one of other practices, of other purposes, of other mental habits, for one following other teachers, to understand the discipline which I give to my adherents, the discipline through which my adherents are established in serenity, recognizing it as the firm foundation of their spiritual life. But come, Banyan, ask me a question concerning your own teaching of extreme self-mortification: in what conditions is this self-mortification perfected' and in what conditions is it not perfected?” The Buddha turned aside the question regarding his own teaching by saying that it was difficult to understand. Without doubt he realized that, while there was a spark of genuine spirituality in Banyan, the great mass of NOTES AND COMMENTS mendicant pilgrims with him were full of cavilling, stony ground on which no precious seed should be sown. But there was a still more definite reason, a rule framed by the Buddha himself, which he formulates in another discourse: “Whoever has been an adherent of another sect, and wishes to enter the dis¬ cipline of this Law of Righteousness, desiring admission to the first degree, and afterwards to the second degree, must first remain on probation for four months, after which the disciples of strenuous heart will admit him to membership in the first degree, and afterwards to membership in the second degree of the Order of disciples. But even in such a case, the difference between individuals is taken into account.” It was not a favourable moment to explain this wise rule to Banyan; but, if his desire for light was genuine and strong, he would presently find it out. So, for the time, the Buddha parried the premature question, and introduced the whole subject of self- mortification, thus finding a motive for the special theme of this discourse. How unfavourable the occasion was for expounding the Law of Righteousness, the narrative reveals; for when the Buddha had answered Banyan as just recorded, the swarm of mendicant pilgrims began to shout with exceeding great noise, “Marvellous, Sir, wonderful, Sir, is the superhuman gift and power of the ascetic Gotama in holding back any pronouncement regarding his own teaching, and turning the conversation to the teaching of others!” To the credit of the pilgrim Banyan, we are told that he imposed silence on these ironical mendicants, and spoke thus to the Master: “We, Sire, are believers in penitential self-mortification, we hold that penitential self-mortification is essential, we practise penitential self-mortifi- cation. In what conditions, Sire, is this penitential self-mortification per¬ fected, and in what conditions is it not perfected?” In reply, the Buddha enumerates a long series of practices, which may with advantage be condensed. There is, first, a certain anarchism in manners, often characteristic of youthful radicals even in our own enlightened age, beginning with curt speech and culminating in a scrupulous abstinence from the use of water, whether internally or externally. It is worth noting that one finds the same abstinence among the hermits of the Egyptian desert, in the third and fourth centuries of our era. Next come scruples regarding food, the refusal to eat cooked food, precise rules as to accepting gifts of food, a punctilious spacing of the times of eating, whether once a day, once in three days, or once a week, and so forth; practices also found, carried to extreme exaggeration among the Egyptian solitaries. Indeed, one may suppose that this drift to meticulous formalism in the Egyptian desert may well have frustrated a spiritual movement originally of the greatest promise, so that it was necessary for Benedict to frame a new rule, on spiritual prin¬ ciples. Then come self-mortifying postures, such as standing bareheaded in burning sunshine, or lying on a bed of thorns or spikes. There is a quaint note on this kind of practice in the records of the Egyptian hermits, exactly in line with the Buddha’s teaching: “The brother went to his cell, and fell on his face upon the ground, and for three whole days and nights he wept 6 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY before God. And after these things, when his thoughts were saying unto him, 4 Thou art now an exalted person, and thou hast become a great man,’ he used to contradict them, and set before his eyes his former shortcomings, and say, "Thus were all my offences.’ ” After enumerating many penitential self-mortifications, the Buddha said, What thinkest thou, Banyan? If they be thus earned out, is penitential self-mortification perfected, or is it not perfected?” Banyan replied that, in his view, self-mortification was in fact perfected by these practices. But the Buddha said: ‘‘Even when these self-mortifications are perfectly carried out, I say that they are subject to certain impurities.” ‘‘In what way, Master, when these self-mortifications are perfectly carried out, are they subject to impurities?” The opening of the pilgrim’s mind and the softening of his self-righteous heart are indicated by his addressing the Buddha as Master, in contrast to the rather abrupt ‘‘ascetic Gotama”, used by the other mendicants. The Buddha’s reply introduces the essence of the discourse, which is in principle closely akin to the criticism of the Pharisees: ‘‘An ascetic, Banyan, enters on a penitential exercise. Because of this penitential exercise he is delighted with himself, filled full with self-satisfaction. When this so happens, Banyan, it is an impurity. Again, Banyan, an ascetic enters on a penitential exercise. Because of this penitential exercise he exalts himself and despises another. When this so happens, Banyan, it is an im¬ purity. Once again, Banyan, an ascetic enters on a penitential exercise. Because of this penitential exercise he becomes infatuated, he becomes intoxi¬ cated and falls into negligence. When this so happens, Banyan, it is an impurity. Once more, Banyan, an ascetic enters on a penitential exercise. Because of this penitential exercise, he receives gifts and gains honour and fame. And because he receives gifts and gains honour and fame, he becomes greatly pleased with himself. When an ascetic, thus gaining gifts, honour and fame, is greatly pleased with himself, this, Banyan, is an impurity. Once more, Banyan, an ascetic enters on a penitential exercise. Because of this penitential exercise, he receives gifts and gains honour and fame. And be¬ cause he receives gifts and honour and fame, he exalts himself and despises another. When this so happens, Banyan, it is an impurity. Once more, Banyan, an ascetic enters on a penitential exercise. Making a distinction of foods, he says, ‘This commends itself to me; this does not commend itself to me.’ That which commends itself not to him, he steadily rejects, but that which commends itself to him, he eats greedily, becoming infatuated with it, not recognizing the sin and danger in this gluttony. This, Banyan, is an impurity. Once more, Banyan, an ascetic enters on a penitential exercise, togs grown from Mt things grown from sprouts. ^ ~~ Mow who “fS'iaT'S'htZiS.: those who give aims. This. puHtg. Once more. Banyan *<££££ an TsceticTnks about among those who give alms, ^inlungjo hnnjetf, STiSM* he ma, nourish ^ are not free from impurity. It is indeed .. tr E sire that one who practises self-mortifying penances may be taintec and much more, that he may be guilty of any on, * % does not commend itself to me.’ Nor, saying this, does he steadily reject that which does not commend itself to him, nor does he eat greedily that which commends itself to him, becoming infatuated with it, not recognizing the sin and danger in this gluttony. In that measure is he purified. Nor does he enter on a penitential exercise moved by a desire for gifts, honour and fame, with the thought that kings, courtiers, nobles, priests and householders will pay him honour. In that measure is he purified. Nor does he grow jealous of some ascetic or Brahman, saying, ‘That fellow lives lavishly; he eats every kind of food, grinding them all together with his thunderous jaws!’ In that measure is he purified. Nor, seeing some other ascetic or Brahman honoured, esteemed, highly regarded, respected among those whom he visits for alms, does he think, ‘ People honour, esteem, regard and respect this fellow who lives lavishly; but they do not honour, esteem, regard, nor respect me, a true ascetic, living a life of austerity!’ Nor does he nourish ill-will and resentment against those who give alms. In that measure is he purified. Nor does he seat himself in some place where he will be seen of men, nor slink about among those who give alms, thinking to himself, 4 This is a part of my penance!’ Nor does he practise secretiveness, dissembling his views, and thus falling into deliberate lying. In that measure is he purified. Nor, when the Tathagata or an adherent of the Tathagata, teaching the Law of Righteousness, follows a method worthy of approval, does he reject it. In that measure is he purified. Nor does he nourish wrath or enmity, hypocrisy or deceit, avarice or envy, craft or guile; nor is he obstinate or conceited; nor does he entertain sinful wishes, falling under their sway; nor does he hold false views, becoming addicted to delusive opinions, nor grow worldly minded, p-asping after riches and turning away from renunciation. In that measure is he purified. What thinkest thou then, Banyan ? If this be so, is self-mortification purified or not purified?” “Truly, Sire, if this be so, self-mortification is purified, it fails not of puri¬ fication. It has reached the summit; it has penetrated to the inmost core!” Not so, Banyan! Not yet has self-mortification reached the summit nor penetrated to the inmost core; rather it has only touched the outermost bark.” “How then, Sire, may self-mortification reach the summit and penetrate to the inmost core?” It is a wise question, showing something of the grace of humility. We shall on a future occasion consider the Buddha’s wise and gracious answer. THEOSOPHY P ERHAPS it would, be an auspicious beginning, if we were to try to make clear what The Theosophical Society is, whose guests we are to-night, and at the same time to say what it is not. The Theosophical Society, which has invited you to this lecture, is the representative, the continuation, of The Theosophical Society founded here in New York by Madame H. P. Blavatsky, W. Q. Judge and others, in November, 1875. It has maintained a continuous life for more than half a century, working for the same ideals, advancing toward the same goal. It is in no way connected with other societies calling themselves Theosophical, which are under the guidance of Mrs. Annie Besant, Mrs. Katherine Tingley, or whoever it may be. When the subject of this lecture was being considered, the conviction was reached that the most useful and timely theme would be the relation of the Masters of Wisdom to humanity; the relation of those divine powers—divine in wisdom and love—to the life and destiny of the human race; a relation active throughout the ages, active at this moment, active, as we hope and are convinced, throughout the centuries to come; carrying on the same work of beneficence and illumination until its consummation, when all of humanity that is willing has reached the height of spiritual development which the Masters of Wisdom already exemplify and embody. If we speak of the relation of the Masters of Wisdom to humanity, we suggest a picture of light and shadow strongly contrasted: the light of the Masters, and the heavy Shadows of our human life; and, if we look back through cen¬ turies of history and consider the cumulative tragedy of the life of mankind, race after race gaining a certain attainment,—intellectual, artistic, spiritual, material,—coming like a wave to its crest, and then, like a wave breaking and disappearing, we may realize how great, how long continued, how com¬ plete that tragedy has been. Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians have so completely vanished as nations, that we have to dig their memorials out of the earth. Still older peoples have not even left a name, while it would seem that the most ancient of surviving civilizations, that of the Chinese, is obstinately determined to hack itself to pieces and disappear. It is already seriously debated whether this Western civilization of ours may not be on the same path; whether we have not reached, or will not soon reach the culmination of our attainment, moral, intellectual, artistic—and it seems to be in the main mental and material; it is questioned whether, having thus reached our culmination, we shall not also disappear, to be cov¬ ered over by the merciful earth like the Babylonians and Assyrians. This is 1 From stenographic notes of a lecture by Charles Johnston, on April 28, 1928, on the occasion of the Convention of The Theosophical Society. 10 THE0S0PHICAL QUARTERLY one of the problems we may consider: must we inevitably share the fate of these dead nations, or is there something that may be done to ward off destruc¬ tion, something, perhaps, that we ourselves may help to do * We have that long panorama of shadows, of vanished and ruined races, going back, not for millenniums only, but for millions of years, each race having its birth, its maturity, its death, and then, for most of them, complete oblivion; and, in contrast with these endless shadows, ceaseless effort by the Masters of Wisdom to enlighten, to redeem, to enkindle this stumbling human¬ ity, for whom every step forward is a fall; the Masters of Wisdom, working, toiling, labouring endlessly, with infinite beneficence and resource, infinite patience, infinite sacrifice. If we thoughtfully study one of the mam themes of The Theosophical Society—the great religions of the world—we may interpret them in this sense: namely, the divine expedients used by the Masters of Wisdom, by the Lodge of Masters, in the heavy task of saving humanity which so often seems determined on self-destruction. We may begin such a survey with ancient Egypt, and the Mystery teaching of the divine Osiris, who is, perhaps, the earliest of the Masters of Wisdom within the period we call historical, to undertake a mission to mankind, endeavouring to impart such wisdom and knowledge and virtue as mankind was ready to receive. His great task culminated in a sacrificial death, and his body was dismembered and scattered through the land of Egypt. This is the history of a great Master; it is at the same time a symbol of the primor¬ dial sacrifice of the Logos; of that synthesis of the spiritual consciousness of mankind, which again and again makes the sacrifice of supreme self-giving, in the effort to redeem the human race. If we come next to those wise scriptures of ancient India, the great Upani- shads, we shall find one theme running through them all: namely, the wisdom of the Masters, their eager desire to impart this wisdom, and the path toward them which they would have us seek and follow, so that we too may share their eternal treasure. In a certain sense, we may say that the message of the Masters of Wisdom is that of a conditional immortality. They do not teach an inevitable im¬ mortality, an immortality inherent in, or even to be thrust on, every human being. The Masters of Wisdom teach no such inevitable immortality. We may easily illustrate this. Take first a sentence from the Upanishads: “Foolish children seek after outward desires, and come to the wide-spread net of Death; but the wise, beholding immortality, seek not for the enduring among unenduring things”; and compare with it a like pronouncement of Jesus: “Enter ye in by the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be that enter in thereby. For narrow is the gate, and straitened the way, that leadeth unto life, and few be they that find it.” There is no inevitable immortality for those who do not earn it. In truth, mortality is a fate which would overtake us all, were it not for the divine interposition of the Masters of Wisdom, who stretch out to us immortal THEOSOPHY hands of help and succour. So the Upanishads are full of the teaching of wisdom which reveals the path whereby we may ascend to their immortal world, passing through the Gates of Gold to the Masters’ heritage of im¬ mortal life. The Upanishads teach the wisdom of Atma, the Supreme Self of all beings; the same divine Life which Philo of Alexandria later called the Logos, the Divine Mind, the collective spiritual consciousness of our universe. They tell us that, while each of us may seem to be a wanderer and exile, lonely, desolate in our world of shadow and of sorrow, we are in reality neither alone nor desolate, but undivided, unseparated rays of the Universal Self, the Logos. What is needed to secure our immortality—an immortality which is still conditional, until this victory is won—is the realization of our oneness with the Supreme Self. The Upanishads show how, step by step, we may mount the golden stairs; they tell us what we must leave behind; what we must gain, as we tread the small, old path; what we must achieve; with the promise that we shall in the fulness of time be initiated into the fulness of that eternal, universal Supreme Self of all beings. In their essence, the Upanishads may date from the same period as the great Osiris,—let us say, twelve or thirteen thousand years ago. In the course of ages, their sublime teaching began to be obscured in the hearts and minds of lesser men, men of smaller spiritual stature, diminished valour, contracted wisdom. About the time of the Buddha, twenty-five centuries since, this ancient teaching was altogether obscured in the general understanding, and its place was taken by a false view concerning the Self. Therefore, we find that superb sage, Siddhartha the Compassionate, known as the Buddha, the Awakened, attacking this false view of the Self. The Awakened One began by awakening in his own splendid soul and spirit the ancient Wisdom, the ancient Power, the ancient Love of the Masters and of the Logos. Then, when he had reached full enlightenment, tradition tells of a dramatic scene. The Buddha, after gaining the Light, had fallen almost into despair over the hopelessness of communicating that Light to mankind, so callous, so full of delusions and false desires. As he sat thus despondent, there appeared to him great Brahma, who may represent the Head of the Lodge of Masters. By strong and eloquent pleading, the great Brahma at last persuaded the Buddha at least to make the attempt; perhaps a few might listen, perhaps a few might understand. We may fancy that they held a conference as to ways and means. So many expedients had been tried, for the most part with little fruit. The disease of the time was philosophical egotism, which falsely transferred to the temporal, personal self the absolute being of the divine and universal Supreme Self; and we may suppose that the Buddha, counselling with great Brahma, worked out this plan: It would be possible, perhaps, to win recruits for immortality, for the Lodge of Masters, if he could first knock out of them every trace of egotism. If this process led to their extinction, that would be unfortunate for them; but, should they happily survive, awaking again, as 12 theosophical quarterly !hem er Ssdo m the sHL er B S ud e dha f sTvT’ H ^ ^ ^ P ° SSible t0 teach the idea of egotism in the “ a ° y and eVei T wa >’- to attack mental image of the body which ^ ’ f at the false sel i built upon a of life, the one VSSto *t£ in Z* ^ tte Central -Hty must bow down which all tte lTJl 16 ™ rse - to which all other persons egotism which is’ ^2eS,g eveTiL ^ “™J «“ “—e this out first of all F™™ fw • The Buddha set himself to kill ing, this part which nelZ LT °r TV™ part of his ^ch- of positive splendour 1 thaii^re'tl^TT 018 ^ 6 ^ ^ ™ y Seem less fuI1 The false self is attacked and d J Upan f ads -- but the splendour is there, ness which it masks may be revealed 6 ’ ^ '' * ** ^ ^ spiritual conscious- — Upanishads: *o ...oh «h, the small, old path choked bv S u ’^ 8 “ ne Mortality; but, finding mighty ann to Zr a^y that ZT' « by * U the P™er of hi that there is any ““ « atly d "™ men worship. It is a delusion ««♦ * . ® g ’ the faIse - usurping self that becomes even a possibilitv Those ^ ” ay con< l uered before salvation thereupon, in the traditional i r T 7>u h “™ g . hU teachln k accepted it, for the homeless life- that is thev & fin 11 6 uddblsts ’ left the household life personal self-seeking'’of J 7 SUrr « ndered aP Personal ambition, . >.yi»g: -To the B^ddh, , 7 X ?°“, “L'T “»» Um, refuge I go; to his Order for refuge I go ” P LSW ° Rl * hte ousness for formula, they did in realitv sacrifios ti Vi Pronouncing this sacramental Self .. all. but mh” r^ie wrTh The f . ’ eS ° lism ' ,hich is "« Self- Then, pressing^ *™ “ d U " iV “ s ‘ 1 the fulness of time to theVllV r ° f egotlsm > the >' attained in of .he high rr ■">*- responsibility for the spiritual life of aU mankind ° f Maslers: grea t T ff „ C ”f ^Te “S wX^h”?" «“• " »” d «* as the Incarnation ofJesus°^ Z YT" *° “ r ™ dd Eastern teaching, the tLchL o Z I T! fa ™ iliar " th th ' aneient we shall at oncf „,K« fde'tv *7^*1?* «" B « ddha ’ older efforts of Masters Once V V t T eachm S and purpose with these forces, entrusting^ one of ffs honoured ^ ° f MaSterS ****** * mission to mankind,—which seems bent o^^fT a tremendous and tragical history, through determined egotism and tlI Se ’ f ' destructlon at every period of shall find an identity and at the « forfeiture of immortal life. We Plan. The great uLhh^ds set th 7 ™’ " ° f method and of false self by revealing the snlend emse ves t0 destroy the egotism of the teaching wa" nu£%£fV™ ^ ^ this was once more enthroned, the Buddha P ^ th ® ,do1 of the false self perhaps we may say trusted that th ^ u 1WSe ^ to smash that idol; and, Y say, trusted that those who survived and came through on We find the Master who is known as the Christ-the Anointed-pursuing a method at once the same as to its goal, and somewhat different in mea . He seems to have determined to do two things. The Buddha, in teaching the unreality of the false self, tried in every possible way to bring his followers to deny and abjure the false self; among other means, he showed with crystal¬ line clarity that all the evils of life are the offspring of egotism, and of egotis alone Because of egotism, mankind is beset with misery miseraWe in birth miserable throughout life, miserable in death; and, he s aid, 11* there is only one way of escape, and that is the destruction i is the root of all misery. So he used the lever of sorrow, as lever of abnegation, to persuade us to abandon our idolatry of self. goal: the conquest of self as the way to immortality. words: “He that loveth his life shall lose it; ; world shall keep it unto life eternal”: the - • - l,— yet with a difference. While ow, which men so greatly dread, and before — * ■ 1 -r in another way. n sorrow,” he said in effect, “but accept it, and learn its Conquer self, conquer egotism, by accepting sorrow. r Wisdom, he invariably carried out his own teaching wit lid the Buddha. Therefore, his life, from its inception, rests ;e of sorrow, which was his peculiar contribution, we may ual mission of mankind; as the words of the ancient prophet ressed it, “Despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, Ath grief ” This acceptance of sorrow has a purpose in no n the purpose of the Buddha. It is a part of the path which nd tread courageously with valiant heart, if we are really to and win immortality. To use a homely expression: there is ly one end;—if we have pleasure at the one end, we shall 3 ain at the other. The only way is to take the whole stick e acceptance of sorrow is an inevitable part of the lesson of idha accepted suffering and sorrow with a fulness which has eded, as did also Christ; but the Buddha used the lever of Taps be right in thinking that Christ sought to break the idol >t another way; a way which is infinitely appealing, because sacrifice which it involved: namely, to break down egotism mg force of pity, of compassion. Here is a group of persons, id imprisoned in his own egotism as in a coat of steel. If pity fir hearts, this egotism would melt away as snow banks melt T'Wpfr.re Christ taught compassion. The parable of the escape from misery, of egotism which ‘ he used the 1-. — Christ had the same Time after time, he used the same 1 and he that hateth his life in this teaching of the Upanishads and of the Buddha, the Buddha used the lever of sorrow, \- which so manv men are arrant cowards, Christ met sorrow 14 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY C0 Z andment 1 glV ? unt0 y0U ’ That ye love one an °ther as I have loved vou ” -compassion, to melt the hardness of our human hearts 7 ’ to drive ro S me 0t th?s y trL teaC H hmg ', by by injUnCti ° n that Christ sought l fL M :r,L w i dom r chin8 over °»>— ^ As Krishna, £ ,he Ma^VZ'r ^ fl °‘ Bhagavad Gita; “Whenever there is a withering of The Law^' ^ ^ of lawlessness, then I manifest myself for th» g ^ ^ L ? and an uprising the destruction of such as do evil” Th/ * th al 7 atl0n of the n ghteous, and tion, -for the dJStoof of the law of Karma; and, since it is the law we shaikh lm P ressive expression The principal matter is that, whenever the need arises the Ma t° **' intervene in our human life. eS ’ ™ Ma ters of Wisdom To return to the point from which we started • v™. *u Theosophical Society —but net ti, " u d ' You are the S uests of The cence on the part of members of The^h &n ' V ^ rt “ e or extraordinary benefi- aH of us, the river £££^ many of us believe (you will not find this written in oS ConStioT Cty ’ “ it m any sense an obligation of members to believe it but it is the de’ 15 viction of many of us)-The Theosophical Society itself is such an efforT °°t an incarnation of wisdom and power and love L* Q „ * an effort, such conditional immortality as is represented bv the t u tea chmg of that o PP o rtu „ ily; r r may <»» •hey, foLri„ g £*£ ?, h aTX ?• WiSd °" ’ C ° special upgrowth from the animal world-supermen ,n the 10 "’ Kpt ^ eat & are superanimals? permen in the sense that we have hoped for the success l u T./'*» We “” ld 1»rdly £ * «**■ £££ t ”X“, h £eThe l o he T ssii'S isr z'xzsi r pat the evolution, with a far greater scope and THEOSOPHY Darwin ever dreamed. We further hold Masters who have been named, and manj evolutionists in a sense that makes Darwir of one syllable. The Masters of Wisdoi sweeps through infinite ages and pervad tionists of Darwin’s school perceive onl part of the great picture of evolution, of glimpse. We hold that other part to b see an ascent from below,—and they do hope to see humanity go far higher than the imagine. But we hold also that Some astronomers and physicists truth. For these astronomers, ou: halfway between the immensity of through boundless reaches of space, verging toward extinction. ‘ think of an incandescent world (— veloping, or condensing, into a geological world*£ 731 ™’ T ®,° , here are gl6ams and glimpses of a descent from above evolutionary ascent from below; but, as yet, no real insight into the there is a descent of Spirit into Matter, in part to consolidate and in part, infusing itself progressively through Matter again toward its source, to transform Matter into self-conscious c Spirit Soddy holds that the process he depicts, the alternation incandescent and geological worlds, may take place again and probably taken place times without number in the beginning universe This is altogether consonant with our teaching- it forth in the Buddhist scriptures and in the ancient Puranas ’ And we hold that each one of these great terrestrial or its harvest of spiritual perfection; that, from tl age, an older epoch of universal life, the Mast remaining with this our world in order to gua ours through its infancy and nonage,—our hutr shows itself so sorely in need of the teaching unwilling to accept that teaching, headstrong satisfaction of egotism, even though i This, then, is the source from whii They are the golden grain, garnered spiritual guardians of mankind, of our their ministering guardians, who ma infinite path of Life. This, then, is the goal toward which find the hidden treasure, as it is.calle Christ; the hidden treasure of our imm may be won. This is our message, as mat each and every one of the great more whom we hold in reverence, are seem like a child, speaking in words n have a concept of evolution that es innumerable worlds. The evolu- y half the problem. There is one which they have not even gained a B of vital im P° rt - The Darwinists not carry it very far upward. We best of them has been able to not less important is the descent from above J are [ eehn S va g«ely after this supplemental our substantial and middle-aged sun stands of an orb, tenuous as a spider web, dispersed * .and a sun grown old, shrunk and shrivelled We find physicists like Frederick Soddy who , once more, finer than gossamer, gradually de- l like our familiar Earth. anteceding the truth that into Matter, to raise Matter omniscient between again, and has less past of the is clearly set planetary days bore harvest of an earlier om are carried over, de this humanity of h, from day to day, and so desperately nined on the fullest and extinction. come the Masters of Wisdom. i 6 theosophical quarterly we fain JuM ^auTa^TZZZyTe^e ^But^^n ° f Wisd ° m Whom sssr yours, if you will accept it and fulfil the r find thls treasure, which may be Consider for a moment the^ 10nS neces ^ ^r its attainment day, the present hour. There are va™ SC10usness of men at the present churches echo the word immortality but °! immortaI >ty-the waning courage. Taking it all i„ all the 11 Wth flaggln & force and Purely material: comfort andalii 7177" ^ 7 ^ ^ «* body, and amusement of the personal self A1 ° f the material rings of the majority of people are d w h ff thlngs the heart- m a deserted garden, wrapping itself about a’ 77’ hke W,ld convolvulus s rangled to death. TheTruth2 Lt ?”*** that * being the comfort of the physical body on the defeet 7 7 mankind are set on the logical thing to do is, to dig their r, tatlon of the Personal self then that there is no conceivable immortality fo/rT forthwith - for the reason bound themselves to what is mortal Thk hT' • Th ® y have deliberately us a re reasonably grateful that it is ' No oJ Y “ m ° rta, '-and some of t is immortal. They have staked their lites on wh T** ** * m ° ment tbat TWnk Sm h ^ thC b ° dy are do °med to death “ t0 ,ose ' Both Think what it would be, if mankind or o • were to hold instead the splendid ideal 7^°" ° f manki "d, foiro of sacnfice, of self-abasement of Jff • M f Sters of Wisdom, by every forth to mankind through long centuries have been holding of years. If we were to accent the ° ng millenniums, and even millions struction of egotism, through purificatkmof if 7 thr °ugh the de! compassion and indomitable heroism th through a clean life, through spintual consciousness, what a tran -f ’ h [° Ugh the search for wisdom anH {JHTnT ati ° n Pr ° mising a golden a^arfi" 7^ W ° rk in the world fabled Golden Age of the past g ^ finer and splendid than the is rt hlS ' then ’ 1S ° Ur opportunity. This is the is the great career, if you wish n™ ? ? the P r °mise held out to us rt treasure which the Masters of Wisdom ha! 7* ° f Pr ° mise: the splendid pearl of great price, of which Christ aVe offered through the a^es that very realm of the Masters th! hkkT’ ? ^ kingdom of heaven namely 6 xx - *■»>«»£££ ,re * sore *X xx sr * ** xttxx ? r- Kots, all the evil that has THEOSOPHY 17 been done in his name. Even those who would not call themselves Christians, speak with reverence, with love, with admiration of him whom they consider a marvellous figure in the past; whom we hold to be a living Master in the present and in the future, with the Buddha and the Great Companions The scriptures with which we are most familiar have the same teaching of the Lodge of Masters. Throughout the Old Testament you will find the record of Messengers (translated “angels” and thereby somewhat obscured) like those who came to Abraham, foretelling “the destruction of such as do evil. There are like Messengers in the book of Daniel; and there is that great passage in the second book of Esdras, where on the holy hill, Esdras saw the Sons of Wisdom, and he said, “What are these? He answered and said unto me, These be they that have put off the mortal clothing, and put on the immortal”; the Masters of Wisdom, as we believe them to be. In the New Testament, supplementing the central figure of the Master Christ, in the fourth chapter of the Apocalypse, there is again a picture of the Lodge of Masters, just as in the Bhagavad Gita and in the scriptures of Buddhism. But it will not profit us if we leave the Masters of Wisdom in the Suttas and the Apocalypse. Our problem is, to find them here and now, through the sacrifice of our egotism, the purification of our hearts, through loyal service, flaming aspiration, fiery devotion. These are the means. These are the golden steps of the everlasting pathway to the House of Eternity. This is our opportunity; the opportunity which, however inadequately and imperfectly, I have tried to bring before every one who is here to-night as a hope, and, perhaps, to some, as a radiant splendour. This is our opportunity. This is the Path. Let us take our courage in both hands and determine that, whatever be the cost, we shall seek the aid of the Great Companions and set forth on that immortal pathway, with the same goal toward which they press: to bring humanity out of darkness into light, out of death into immortality. Keep thine ear open to the counsels of wisdom so that, if not wise now, thou mayest become so in thy future years and may die a wise man.— Cowles. A BACKGROUND FOR CHELASHIP T HE purpose of this note is to outline, as simply and briefly as possible, certain salient features of a background, drawn from the study of Theosophy, against which the subject of chelaship may be viewed in a less misleading perspective than when, taken out of its proper context, it is considered only in the terms of our ordinary Western thought. Chelaship is a state or stage of spiritual life—as definite and as impossible to evade in spiritual growth as is the corresponding stage of childhood in physical and mental growth. The word "chela” means child; but as it is a matter of spiritual childhood, the first requisite for its understanding is some apprehen¬ sion of spiritual life, in contradistinction to the ordinary personal life It is futile to attempt to define spirit. At the basis of every science, implicit in all speech, there are certain undefinables, which can only be pointed to; only be known as they are seen and experienced. Spirit and matter are two such undefinables. The theosophical philosophy presents these two as two aspects or facets of the essential Unity of Being, from which comes the duality that characterizes all manifestations of Being. They are the opposite poles of conditioned existence”, the whole manifested universe reflecting their mutual interaction and interpenetration. Spirit descends into matter in¬ carnating more and more of itself; and as it descends, it draws matter up animating it, and building it into more and more highly organized forms to serve as vestures or vehicles of the spirit. In this view, therefore, the evolu- lonary process, the process of becoming, which we see throughout the whole manifested- universe, is an essentially dual movement. The ascent of, or rom, matter is concomitant with, and caused by, a descent of, or from, spirit The one movement cannot be separated from the other, and the teaching of science, w ich focusses attention solely on the ascending sequence of animal forms, needs to be supplemented by a recognition of the other half of the TirimoT'r/ 6 pr0gressive descent of the incarnating spirit. As material or animal life comes to us from below, so spiritual life comes to us from above j.e share in each; neither is, or can be, pure in us. We cannot know “pure pnt any more than we can know “pure matter”, but we can-know the direction in which we must look and move, if we are to see it more-clearly and to incarnate it more fully. We must look above ourselves; move from 7 0 a T f WC ^ n0t y et -~ Ieani ng. pressing, out from our own nature to what is beyond our nature. are Th s e o r t f Wo Wh ?f We define “spirit”, though it enters into all we imm h t 0U f. llf / 15 ,ts hfe ln us - though it is manifest wherever we look, ‘“ a11 of nature - we see - nevertheless, that in order to point to it most d^ectly, we must use a term of ill repute in modern thought-the adjective supernatural”. The spiritual life is a supernatural life; a life 18 A BACKGROUND FOR CHELASHIP 19 that comes to us from above and that leads us to what is above There is no power arising from nature itself that can enable it to transcend itself The driving power of evolution and of upward progress is not in nature; it is m supemature. It is not a push; it is a pull. J*™ ^ g ° fUrth T' r kt J US try t0 recognize wh *t this means in terms of own experience. We identify at once the two opposing currents in our conscious life; the one arising from beneath, pertaining plainly to the vesture cart 5 ^ TT’ ^ Spmt itSelf ' Jt ' s concerned with the animal Dernet, T'’ ■}' 1StS ° f ^ flesh the cravin S f °r safety, ease, pleasure, the perpetuation of its own existence, and the exercise and gratification of its own energies. But even more closely it concerns itself with the psychic vesture- with our pictures of ourselves, which we seek to maintain at all costs, and , ° ™ P ^ SS the “ Up ° n aI1 . about us tha t we may see them reflected back to It is the To 7 S rf^ wZ e 1S th , e greater part of ambition, and all of vanity. selves tn r (1 S< f 5 a WOrd may thus be de K raded ) of what we consider our- manKeste?’- ^ h ° pe t0 become = of what has been incarnated and all thlt if m fiV°# ° f 7 hat IS bey ° nd and above us ' R attaches itself to it turns that" a°! g °° , 7 US: bUt t0 the extent t0 which attaches itself, it turns that good into evil; for it makes good operate to hold us where we are, a barrier to our rising to what is better. On the other hand, we recognize ourselves an opposite current, coming from above, bringing with it ideals lit . \ n ,al T **! h*" <** — «*■«* - their authentidtyfult Thoueh « ? P f° f * he d “ reS th * Psychic nature,, though, as we have just indicated, many of them come to be reflected in and servfeTfTh } vi 6 psycblc selb Tbls current from above prompts us to the service of these ideals, to the service of truth, of righteousness, of the welfare of others; to the setting aside of self for something higher than self Our seTf U a r nd 1S seli US mte ^ netrati °ns, the conflicts and the compromises, of R * rl f 7 and day by day we act out this nature in good and ill But both above and below what we are—what we thus incarnate day by day— we are conscious of unplumbed depths of what might be that are constantly calling to us; of evil unimaginable with which the selfishness in ourselves is yet of one piece, and on the very brink of which, in moments of lurid self- revelation we sometimes see ourselves to stand; and, on the other hand, of good of heroic loyalties which shame our faithlessness, but before which, our shame is lost in worship; of Being that is of itself beauty and truth, wisdom and power and love, and which stretches upward “without bar or wall” etween it and the Supreme. And this, too, though it infinitely transcend us, is felt to be of one piece, not with what we are, but with that to which we aspire. We see or sense it as the living stream from which our ideals flow to us. It is not our self, but it is the source, the creator, of all that is of worth m our self. It is more than the source; it is the end and goal. It is both alpha and omega, the first and the last. It is more intimate than the self; and only in it can the self, losing itself, realize itself. It is not nature; it is super- nature. Its life is the spiritual life. 20 THE0S0PHICAL QUARTERLY This should serve to indicate what we are talking about when we talk of the spiritual life. It is not a matter of vague yearnings, of pious platitudes, of kindly, generous impulses, of dreamy reveries or church services, of humani- tarianism or mere morality, of the keeping of the commandments or a blame¬ less life. It is the upward striving of the whole man, in response to the drawing power of what is above him. It is the abandonment of nature, in reliance upon, and for the incarnation of, supemature. As we stand, we are creatures of the borderland. Three courses are open to us: to continue as we are, of divided loyalty, divided purpose, undoing with one hand what we do with the other, forever stultifying and nullifying ourselves; or we may claim citizenship in either country, in life with the spirit, or in death with the body,—but only at the cost of leaving the other and giving ourselves wholly, in undivided loyalty, to the one we choose. We turn now to the second way in which we must draw upon Theosophy to supplement our modern thought. We may introduce it by recalling the old, unsolvable problem as to which came first, the chicken or the egg. Wher¬ ever we look at life we see maturity and infancy side by side; the oak, the acorn, and the growing sapling; but we have already noted that the view of the universe, and particularly of human evolution, which science offers us, traces the ascent of life from the germ of the single cell to the point where man is to-day, with no indication whatever as to whence that germ came or toward what maturity we are growing. Theosophy supplements this view, not only by pointing to the descending current of spirit, but also by its knowledge of the Masters, of perfected men, and of the great hierarchy of spiritual being that stretches unbroken to the Eternal. It shows us that our life of becoming is the offspring, the child, of life that has become, that is. Man is not the orphan that science depicts; he has his Father in the Heavens, and his Father’s Fathers; who have become even as he must become, and they manifest, in its maturity, that to which his infancy must grow. It is from them and through them that the current of spiritual life reaches him. They are the realized embodiment of all to which he aspires and strives; it is their life, imparted to him, which enables him to aspire and to strive. But over and above the life which they thus transmit to what is beneath them, they remain themselves; not abstract spirit, but its concrete, personal embodiment. So Krishna, speaking as the Eternal Spirit, says to Arjuna: “I established this whole universe with a single portion of myself, and remain separate.” We should now be in a better position to understand what is meant when we translate ch£laship” as spiritual childhood. It implies that the ch£la has entered into the spiritual life, and that he has a Father—mature in the spiritual life. But it implies more than that, for that would be equally true of the infant, and there is a distinction between infancy and childhood. Perhaps we are born as spiritual “infants” from the moment that we resolve, consciously and irrevocably, to claim citizenship in the spiritual world, giving our undivided loyalty to its laws and aims, so that, however often we fail to maintain its standards, we never cease to struggle to maintain A BACKGROUND FOR CHELASHIP 21 them, and are no longer of doubtful will. Let us say that this is “birth”, —though the mystery of birth must go far deeper. Between birth and childhood, however, intervenes the period of infancy, in which the little one, dependent at every point upon his parents (or upon those who stand in the place of his parents), has not yet learned to recognize them or to identify the source from which his needs are met. He must first gain the control and use of his senses and faculties; and until he has himself accomplished this, his universe must seem a very impersonal one. Food arrives, descend¬ ing out of the blue at more or less regular intervals, more or less con¬ comitantly with the increase of certain interior sensations which the food allays, and sometimes apparently expedited by sufficiently lusty wails. The same wails may tend to remove other ills—such as stray or misdirected pins —but, on the whole, the infant’s world must be a place where things just come, and you have to learn to take them as they come. It is by taking them as they come, by using them for his own growing life, that his faculties are developed. The parallels between this and the rudimentary stages of the religious life are obvious and need not be elaborated. Such spiritual infancy is not childhood or ch£laship. Physical childhood, as distinct from infancy, is marked by the facts that the use of the senses has been gained, that parents or nurses are recognized, and that the child is conscious of his own relation to them and of his member¬ ship as one of his own particular family. The child’s world is no longer an impersonal world. He may still be very largely ignorant of the grown-up world, and of the actual interests and labours of grown men and women; but he is not ignorant of their existence, nor of the fact that it is through them that his needs are met and his own life guided and ruled. At just what point infancy passes into childhood it would be difficult to say. The infant becomes the child, and any process of becoming is a gradual one. Only after the transition has been made can it be recognized and the difference perceived. But it is noteworthy that our adult memories do not reach back to infancy. At the earliest point they touch, we see ourselves as children, conscious of our parents and of our membership in the family; and it is prob¬ able that these earliest memories mark the completion of the transformation, —in a certain sense the completion of “birth”, for the infancy that lay behind it is as veiled to our adult consciousness as is the pre-natal state itself. It is from that point that our personal consciousness has been of the same kind as it is now, and that our adult life has arisen. It is the same in the spiritual life. The spiritual infant must grow into, must become, the spiritual child, the ch£la, through acquiring the use of his spiritual senses and faculties, through the recognition of his parents and guardians, and of his dependence on them and through the realization of himself as a member of his own par¬ ticular family. It is from that point that his adult spiritual life arises; and ch£laship is the growth, the pressing forward to that adult life. There is need to remember, however, that when we translate from the speech of the East into that of the West and think of “ch61a” as meaning ‘ child , 22 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY we run grave risk of colouring our thought with all those connotations which childhood has for us to-day, and which are very different from those which it had in earlier times among Eastern peoples. There a son was supposed to be an asset, not a liability. His loyalty was to his father and his family; not to himself. He went where they went, served them and those they served.’ Tasks and responsibilities were assumed by him as soon as he had strength to accomplish them; and it was through these that he was taught and grew to manhood. There could be no more complete antithesis to chglaship than the spoiled child too often considered normal to-day—who looks to his father only to supply the capital for his self-indulgences, and turns to home only for shelter, and to escape the consequences of his acts. Henry Bedinger Mitchell. In general one only asks advice so as not to follow it; or if one do follow it so as to reproach the person who gave it .— A. Dumas. As nothing reveals character like the company we keep, so nothing foretells futunty like the thoughts over which we brood .— Newell Dwight Hillis. WHY I JOINED THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY F EW of us know why we joined. Most of us know how, and we 1 ke to think that is why, and to tell it. It is easier to tell about those things we do not understand than about those things we do understand In the former case, we have all the latitude in the world; in the latter, the limi- tations are unromantically indisputable and definite. Yet-we do know that we were led into The Theosophical Society by a favouring and watchful guidance, and we will not permit anyone to persuade us that it was a “fortuitous happening”. Do we not look down-deep down into ourselves—and make every sincere, silent effort to respond to'Those w call for what belongs to Them (mark those words: we belong to Them); and are we not grateful in feeling that we have heard that call. Tust like yourselves, I cannot recall the past, and, if I could I should very likely be astounded at some of its personal assortments and combinations a nd 'interrelations- but I do remember the occasion when He who regulates things in His own’way for our best interest, first introduced me at this time. Yhat introduction made it easy for me to “sign up” many years later without a U was'somTtime in the summer after I was born. The fruit was still green on the trees and there were also many flowers. My mother did just as they all do Awaiting her opportunity one day when others of the household were away' she took me up to a vacant attic room, just to have me to herself to caress and fondle where none may see or observe or know-as she thought What would she have said could she have seen this stranger whom she thought she held in her arms, standing up in front and all around, filling the room, and also being without amongst the trees and the flowers? Marvellously beautiful and vital is nature when we see it from the real side _responding to the charm of the spiritual world with silent, brilliant adoration, each kingdom and species in its own way, all joining in one worship of that exalted realm which induces all things to express their motives. Life, that day was in every atom, in the sky. in the twitter of the birds which I could feel’ but not hear, in the tremble of all the leaves, in the deep solid fragrance of the shrub, in the glowing self-confidence of the rose, in the perpendicular, unabashed height of the sun-flower, climbing up to its crown of glory. My mother believed that her gestures, as she teased me, were gentleness itself to me they contrasted violently with the glowing, peaceful, unified mdetude of mv world. Not quite here, I could not manipulate that brain r“«rd\ta. body Which she held on her lap. I begged he, to be sdent; 23 2 4 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY to hold me up: was not everything else looking up ? But there was no fear, no resentment, no pain; only I was somewhat aghast at this strange person who made such unlimited assumptions—who took such liberties. I help¬ lessly pawed the air and clutched at heaven—only to grasp the world while she poured on me all the joy of her heart; unknowingly she blessed me and overwhelmed me with the Master’s happiness and love. And so that day I accepted I joined; under protest, but without pain or sorrow. That is all for that—because children grow up. As they grow up, they grow down down into a personality to forget (almost—not quite). As they begin to grow away from their mothers, the world comes forward and ‘‘mothers” them with the insistent effrontery of its learning, its culture, its standards”, and its blinding infamy. Then Those who wait and watch must again have recourse to appropriate methods to remind us of what we must not forget. Do you not remember how, when you were children, and houses were not well heated, good house¬ keepers covered all the floors with heavy carpets after first spreading news¬ papers on the boards, and how they always took the carpets up for spring cleaning? 6 I hark back to one of those spring cleanings. Carpets up, newspapers gathered together and piled in a heap in the corner, and myself wandering about the house disturbed and disconcerted by the confusion. I rummaged amongst those old papers and found myself trying to read an illustrated article (it was the illustration that caught my eye) about Theosophy, theosophical intelligences”, Adepts, akasha, ‘‘reincarnating once every three thousand years”-my word, what a “find” for a small boy! I guess thirty to fifty per cent of the English words were not in my vocabulary nevertheless I understood enough to make an indelible impression, more ’than enough ’to evoke a deep and mysterious interest, and to recall to me the peculiar memories of that day when my mother magnetized me and drew me in Suddenlv feeling that I possessed something of real worth and value, I instinctively secreted the paper with the mental reservation to seek the first favourable opportunity to sneak it out and read it again in secret. Fortunately for me, my “find” was too well hidden. Had I found it I should have learned it”, and have fixed certain errors and false impressions in my mind until it got stale. How well I remember, during my persistent search, that I constantly satisfied my anxiety by having recourse to the original fascinating, illusive impressions until the yearning for “Theosophy” sank into the marrow. Oh, how we crave those things which are taken from us' “mo U the C r h ”toem keeP “ Up ’ and d ° Wn> and the world continues to A few years later:—I am playing with my boyhood friends. In a corner of the garden is a new-made pile of discarded books waiting to be carted away We bombard each other with those old books to our hearts’ content, until the lawn and flower beds are covered with leaves and “scraps of paper”. With all our ammunition used up, the game is “busted”. We pause; there is a momentary relaxation—a letting go—waiting for something else to happen IbsoTd TV 0 , S °T thing ” AS 1 Stand stiU - abstractedly and un- absorbed, I slowly realize that one of my companions has his eye warily on a book cover that I unconsciously hold in my hand. Now, it is or was cus¬ tomary for bookbinders to paste paper on the round of the margins of the leaves to hold the stitches firm, and also on the inside of that part of the oowltht r° UndS ag3inSt thC StitChed margins of the leaves - As I looked at that cover fragment which I involuntarily (?) held, I observed that P P PaStC “IT ,nS ' WaS a fragment of P rinted matter, and my eye cau g ht the word Karmendnyas”. I knew where I had seen that before- f 6 ' gh ng the memory of the lost newspaper and of the never-to-be- forgotten summer day, flashed up into my mind. Fearing detection and catechizing, I quickly dashed it down, but not before full advantage had been onWcai°th my rr 10 " and my mem ° ry and interest in mysterious theos¬ ophical things had again been sharpened and stirred to the depths c a ^l r0m r Cin i if 1 Say_inCredibly skilful watchfulness and kindness to catch me just in the moment of abstraction, and spring a reminder on me? hat episode drove things home deep and clinched them. Thereafter I would for more'^ *** th ° Se lHUSiVe im P ressions - and P°nder on them and yearn What of religion? Yes: I was sent to Sunday School in the good old regu- Wm 11 TiT f e , standard offenn g each Sunday; admonitions, catechism hymns Bible study n everything. Annual Christmas party with its boxes of candy and oranges and sticks of peppermint, which we stuck in our oranges and sucked. Did you not do the same? What? You did not? Now the saints preserve you-your childhood was neglected The olace was good and as usual, discipline too lax even to evoke misbehaviour. The Sunday School not only had me for years, but for the best years; yet with its almost total spiritual blindness it could not match the few incisive strokes given just at the right time, at the right place, in the right way. Visitors came to our home, when I was about eighteen years of age from another city. They stayed a long time, and, while there, formed the acquain- ance of a Russian artist who talked Theosophy to us. A great deal of my ? uno f^y was satisfied; more was stimulated, and—well—I was easily drawn m. While the interest was still leading, and apprehensions and doubt at home were pending, I settled everything by asking for the usual application blank, and signed it. Now please be careful. Of course we are all alike because we are not only ourselves, but also several others; nevertheless, your personal circumstances are peculiarly and exclusively your own, so, if you rip up a lot of carpets, and destroy a lot of valuable books, and get left and don’t catch me, I am afraid you will not get much sympathy. B. CHHANDOGYA UPANISHAD PART I, SECTIONS 1-6 THE POWERS OF THE LOGOS T HE great Upanishads were compiled as Instructions for disciples pre¬ paring for Initiation. They contain philosophical teaching, and also many stories, generally in the form of spirited dialogues, of great beauty and eloquence, or ironical, but always radiant with spiritual wisdom. If we think of what is here translated as a part of these Instructions, we shall have little difficulty in understanding its significance. The theme is the Logos, the divine creative Word, which Philo called the Mind of God, with its progressive manifestation in the Universe and in the Spirit of man. Further, the Sections here translated were especially designed for disciples who knew the Sama Veda. If we remember that the Sama Veda is a collection of hymns which are in effect magical incantations, and that the lines which make up these hymns are in the main taken from the hymns of the Rig Veda and set to music, we shall be able to understand most of the allusions, which were familjar to these disciples. The Logos as a unity, as the divine One, is represented by the syllable “Om”, as pronounced with vibration of magical potency. So the divine Word vibrates, sounding with magical potency, and from its sounding the Universe is made manifest. In the highest manifestation, the One becomes Three: the mystery of the Trinity in Unity. In the text here translated, this Highest Triad is symbolized by the form of chant called “Ud-gi-tha”, here rendered by the three words,“ Loud Chant Song”, to suggest its threefold nature. The Sanskrit word generally translated “syllable” literally means “that which cannot be diminished”, and is, therefore, a fitting term for the divine One, as well as for Om as a unit of speech. Om, then, symbolizes the One, first made manifest as the Triad, here repre¬ sented as the Loud Chant Song. Then come the progressive manifestations of the Triad through emanation. The text carries us at once to the outermost or lowest emanation, here called “elemental Earth”, to be thought of, not as brute matter, but rather as the crystallization or consolidation of Spirit, to be raised again to its divine form by the progressive infusion of Spirit; just as ice becomes water, steam, invisible vapour, by the infusion of heat. There¬ fore, we are told that “of elemental Earth the Waters are the essence”; the Waters are the principle of Life, or Prana, that form of Spirit which first acts on Matter, causing the first transformation from mineral into organic Matter, here described as “the Growths”, the earlier forms of plant and animal life. After these earlier forms comes Man, of whom “creative Voice is the essence”; CHHANDOGYA UPANISHAD 27 this is the ray of the Logos, “the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” It is regarded as a divine perceptive power, and also a power of action, symbolized by the magical energy of a divine invocation or incantation. So we come to the Rig Veda from which are taken the invoca¬ tions of the Sama Veda, and thence to the Loud Chant Song, symbolizing the divine Triad in man and in the Universe. Thus the wave of manifestation returns to its source; the divine cycle is completed. So the disciples were taught to regard the manifested Universe and the Spirit within themselves as the magnificent music of the divine creative Word, the Logos. The true Light lighteth every man that cometh into the world, whether he recognize that Light or not. So there are those who know and those who know not; but “what he accomplishes through wisdom, that, verily, possesses greater virtue.” Then comes the parable of the Bright Powers and the Dark Powers. Since this is teaching for disciples, there is no attempt to reveal the ultimate origin of evil; more important for them is the existence of evil, and its potential presence within themselves. So they were told an ancient tale which shows that every power, though in essence divine, holds within it the possibility of misuse, and therefore of evil. For example, because the Dark Powers pierced Mind with evil, we can form imaginations which corrupt as well as imaginations which stimulate and raise us. Then, when all the powers of man are purified, so that his consciousness is raised to the higher Triad, the Dark Powers in vain assail this divine being; they are shattered as a clod of earth which is dashed against a firm rock. The life of man has risen above duality; he no longer discerns “odorous or malodorous, for he has cast away evil.” Then, perhaps, he is fitted to comprehend “the origin of evil”, and the part which evil plays in the manifestation and dissolution of worlds. Another universal symbol is used in the sentence, “Whatsoever through this principal Life he eats or drinks, through this he guards the lesser lives”: to eat means to gain bodily experience; to drink means to gain mental, or sub¬ jective, experience. When, through the “principal Life”, the Higher Self, all the powers have been purified, then all experience is sanctified, he eats and drinks consecrated elements, as in the Sacrament. All experience, purified and ordered by the Higher Self, makes for spiritual wisdom and power. Thus his experience ministers to “the lesser lives”, the different powers manifested by the Spirit. But he who, “at the time of the end”, at death, has not con¬ sciously brought himself under the guidance of the Higher Self, is said to “depart” along the weary pathway of compelled rebirth. In the sentences which end this Section are a series of names, like Angiras and Brihaspati. In the original, there is in each case a play on words; they seem, therefore, to be mnemonics, to fix in the memory of the disciple the essence of the teaching which has gone before. In the following Section, the Sun, as always in the Mystery teaching, is the great visible symbol of the Logos, as in the eloquent verse “the Sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings.” Here, the Sun is likened + 28 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY to the principal Life, which is the Logos and the Higher Self, as an undivided part of the Logos. When the Sun rises, “he sings aloud for beings”: it is the ancient tradition of the music of the spheres, echoing the divine music of the creative Word. The Sun is spoken of as fire, and also as “Sound and return¬ ing Sound.” There is the thought of the Sun as vibrating forth perpetual energy, and also as being not the source of that energy, but as reflecting it from the true source, the Logos; thus radiating energy as a cliff sends forth an echo. In the next paragraph, the “distributive Life”, which binds together the forward Life and the downward Life, seems to correspond to the power called Fohat, which is in a sense the intermediary between Spirit and Matter. This balanced force gives the magical energy to the Sama chant, and to “whatever other works there are possessing strong virtue.” Then the primordial Triad, symbolized by the Loud Chant Song, is corre¬ lated with other triads, as Heaven-Interspace-Earth, Sun-Breath-Fire. The sentences enjoining the singer of the chant to seek refuge in the Sama, the Rig, the Seer, the Divinity, the measure, the song-form and the region to which he is to chant a hymn of praise, show the division into seven closely interrelated principles or phases of the chant, and thus stand as a symbol of every sevenfold manifestation of the Logos, including sevenfold man. Finally, he draws close to the divine Self which sent him forth, and there is good hope that his heart’s desire will be fulfilled. The same return to the divine source and home is taught in the parable of the Bright Powers and Death. The Bright Powers are the divine forces of manifestation, embodied in the descending series of emanations. In the outer and lower emanations, in the more material aspects of life, they are subject to Death, for all material forms are of necessity mortal. Then, with the great return toward Spirit, the divine energy ascended through the emanations, here symbolized as the Rig verse, the Sama chant, the Yajur sentence; they entered into the “magical vibration” which is the first and highest manifes¬ tation of the Logos, and thus, reunited with the being of the Logos, they became immortal, fearless. So also he who, thus knowing, enters into the being of the Logos, thereby is immortal. Then comes the mysterious story of Kaushitaki and his only son. It would seem to picture the task of the disciple, since the spiritual man is spoken of as a son. When that son has been born and attains his strength, he manifests many powers, here described again as sons. As the text has been handed down, it reads, when the sentence recurs, “then mine (my sons) shall be many”, instead of reading, as before, “then thy sons shall be many”. If this ancient reading be correct, it implies that the many powers of the spiritual man are the powers of the disciple after he has attained. And this would be in full accord with spiritual reality, for there is no solution of continuity; the disciple becomes the adept, he is not replaced by the adept. This story ends with a sentence in form equally mysterious: “Thus knowing, that which has been ill chanted from the station of the sacrificial priest, he perfectly fulfils”; CHHANDOGYA UPANISHAD 29 the meaning seems to be that, when he has attained he does perfectly which, as a struggling disciple, he had done imperfectly; the immortal completes ^IthMah^dybeen noted that the Sama chants are for the most part Rig verses turned into magical song, infused with the vibration which givw em magical potency. So it is said that “the Sama chant rests upon the Rg verse” This relation is used as a symbol of an inspiring force wit m a ve ic e or vesture Thus the fire of Life is breathed into “earth , as in the story in Genesis, forming living beings. So the great Breath blows through 1 the “interspace”; in one sense, it is the electrical energy in the air which gives birth to the thunderstorm, but it is also the whole sum of energies which move in space. “Earth, interspace, heavens, lunar mansions are symbol of four planes in ascending order; each is shown as infused and energized by a co-ordinate power, here symbolized by “ the fire of Life, the great Breat , th y e Sun. the Moon", and in each case «e a,e told that the relation between the plane and the force which energizes it is like the relation between g and Sama: between the verse of a hymn and the same verse energized by “Then wecome again to the Sun as symbol of the Logos. J he ry^ outer white radiance of the Sun, called the photosphere. Beneath and within this is the darker body, in part revealed when a section of the photosphere torn aside by an electrical cyclone which causes a sunspot: the 'nner Sun w ic is the storehouse of solar energy, with the photosphere upheld by it as the words of the Rig hymn are upheld by the magical vibration of.the^chanL Finally we have the symbolic representation of the Sun as the div Man, golden-coloured”, like the Ancient of Days in the Apocalypse, whose “eyes were as a flame of fire”; an image of the tremendous potency of the creative Logos. THE DIVINE CREATIVE WORD OM: As this unchanging Sound he should reverence the Loud Chant Song; for beginning with Om, he chants the Loud Song. This is its expansion. Of manifested beings, elemental Earth is the essence. Of elemental Earth, the Waters are the essence. Of the Waters, the Growths are the essence. Of the Growths, man is the essence. Of Man, creative Voice is the essence. Of creative Voice, the hymn of the Rig Veda is the essence. Of the hymn of the Rig Veda, the chant of the Sama Veda is the essence. Of the chant of the Sama Veda, the Loud Chant Song is the essence. For the Loud Chant Song is of these essences the supreme essence, the spiritual an Which'is^the Rig? Which is the Sama? Which is the Loud Chant Song 5 —thus it is considered. 3° THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY Creative Voice, verily, is the Rig; Life-breath is the Sama; the unchanging ound Om is the Loud Chant Song. These, then, are a creative pair; Voice and Life-breath; Rig and Sama. Then this creative pair is joined together in the unchanging Sound Om. For when the creative pair come together they mutually fulfil desire. He is a fulfiller of desires who, thus knowing this, reverences the Loud Chant Song as the unchanging Sound. Then, venly, this unchanging Sound is affirmation. For when one affirms anything, he says “Om!” Affirmation is obtaining. He is an obtainer of desires who, thus knowing this, reverences the Loud Chant Song as the unchanging Sound. Through this unchanging Sound the threefold wisdom acts. With Om, one calls aloud; with Om, one praises; with Om, one sings the Loud Chant' for the honour of this unchanging Sound, because of its might, because of its essence. Therefore both accomplish work, he who thus knows and he who knows not. But different are wisdom and unwisdom; what he accomplishes through wis- vi°r?ue thr ° U8h faith ’ thr ° Ugh the S6Cret teachin g> that, verily, possesses greater This, in truth, is the expansion of this unchanging Sound. When the Bright Powers and the Dark Powers strove against each other, both coming forth from the Lord of beings, the Bright Powers laid hold on the Loud Chant Song, saying, “Through this we shall overcome them!” Then they reverenced the Life-breath in the nostrils as the Loud Chant Song. smelk h!ftfc Da J k P ° We ^ PIe , rCed * W ‘ th eViL Therefore - through this, one smells both odorous and malodorous, for this is pierced with evil And so they reverenced creative Voice as the Loud Chant Song. Then the “ a P n T rSPi r e r * ,? th 6ViL Therefore ’ th «mgh this, one speaks both truth and untruth, for this is pierced with evil. And so they reverenced Vision as the Loud Chant Song. Then the Dark Powers pierced it with evil. Therefore, through this, one sees both seemly and unseemly, for this is pierced with evil. y And so they reverenced Hearing as the Loud Chant Song. Then the Dark shouM bfh d H r, eVi1 ' Theref ° re ' thr ° Ugh this ' both what And cn what should not be heard, for this is pierced with evil. And so they reverenced Mind as the Loud Chant Song. Then the Dark Powers pierced it with evil. Therefore, through this, one imagines both whit should be imagined and what should not be imagined, for Song d StSiJit iC ^D e n nCipaI Life th6y reverenced a s the Loud Chant striking against afiJ^? P ? W6rS feU “ P ieces> as one would fal1 in pieces pieces so he fa ll« • • r ° C ^ USt as ’ spiking a brm rock, one would fall in selks toL^ti hSi fi P16Ce t d6SireS 6Vil f ° r ° ne wh0 thus knows - or who seeics to harm hun, for such a one is a firm rock. CHHANDOGYA UPANISHAD 3i Nor, verily, through this principal Life does he discern odorous or malodor¬ ous, for this has cast away evil. Whatsoever through this he eats or drinks, through this he guards the lesser lives. So, verily, at the end, not finding this principal Life, he departs, at the time of the end he gives up the ghost. Angiras, verily, reverenced the principal Life as the Loud Chant Song. Indeed they think that it is Angiras, for it is the essence of the members. Therefore, verily, Brihaspati reverenced this as the Loud Chant Song. Indeed they think that it is Brihaspati, the Great Lord, for creative Voice is great, whereof this is lord. Therefore, verily, Ayasya reverenced this as the Loud Chant Song. Indeed they think that it is Ayasya, because it proceeds from the mouth. Therefore, verily, this Baka son of Dalbhya knew. He became master of chants for the people of Naimisha. Of old he sang for them their desires. He, verily, is a singer of desires who, thus knowing this, reverences it as the Loud Chant Song. So far concerning the Self. And so concerning the Bright Powers. He who gleams in the sky, him one should reverence as the Loud Chant Song. When he rises, verily, he sings aloud for beings. When he rises, he drives away darkness and fear. He, verily, drives away fear and darkness, who thus knows. This principal Life and that Sun are alike. For this is fire and that is fire. This principal Life they designate as Sound, and that Sun as Sound and as returning Sound. Therefore, let him reverence the one and the other as the Loud Chant Song. And so, in truth, one should reverence the distributive Life as the Loud Chant Song. When he breathes forth, this is the forward Life-breath; when he breathes downward, this is the downward Life-breath. And so that which is the binding together of the forward Life-breath and the downward Life- breath—this is the distributive Life-breath, this is creative Voice. There¬ fore, without breathing forward, without breathing downward, he sends forth creative Voice. That which is creative Voice, that is the Rig verse. There¬ fore, without breathing forward, without breathing downward, he sends forth the Rig verse. That which is the Rig verse, that’is the Sama chant. Therefore, without breathing forward, without breathing downward, he sings the Sama chant. That which is the Sama, that is the Loud Chant Song. Therefore, without breathing forward, without breathing downward, he chants the Loud Chant Song. And so, whatever other works there are possessing strong virtue, such as kindling fire with the fire-sticks, running a course, drawing a firm bow, these he accomplishes without breathing forward, without breathing downward. For this cause, one should reverence the distributive Life-breath as the Loud Chant Song. And so, in truth, one should reverence the unchanging sounds of the Loud Chant Song: that is, the syllables Loud, Chant, Song. The forward Life- breath is “Loud”, for through the forward Life-breath one arises; creative 32 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY *“ "*-> <* <■ W. ^ JST-T&i '“ST?': Ea « h i» “Sons". Sun, Veda. vrfy. is -IZVy^ Vf" 8 '' »«“ p^r„7SJl k Lth’f h th “ mflk ,vhieh is tL - k - v3>fSS: severe. al reSs': * h ' rf h »^ These one fhouid of ,*f ""«■ »e *to chan, a hy n,„ formed, in the Seer who sang it in tl^ Ty* .^ mn ^ rom whlch the Sama is this Divinity he should seek refuge y ” t0 P™ise,-in of ,vhich he k to ch “*» h >™ a hymn of praise. He should seek ref 0mi ^ th whlch he ls to chant chant a hymn of praise. ^ *” 10 reglon tow ard which he is to Finally, drawing close to the divine Self u u • meditating on his desire Then th ’ 6 s ^ oud sing praise, steadily “* Jhieh he^sh^T^ Th^sJhle^wl^ “” h " nging S °” d “ *>» To«d Chan, Song. Of the Ved S a ht ^^^overed themsdv eat >h W fh t f0rth int ° the triune Wisdom with these they covered themselves thk ™th ^ muslcal measures - Because But Death perceived them there as one ma musical quality of the measures. SO^o n th V e e sia 0n c e hanrso et ILo S Y™’ ^ maJcaTvibration, Om; l*iz%z:r d ’ 0m - into that unchanging^ounVthe iTaZl ^vf Unchanging Sound . goes forth f ° rth ** ** - i B^ G ° ing unchanging Soundfthlt^Sich is^he ^J^ hant that ‘ S the int0ned Loud Chant Song That heaveni q - ned Unchanglng s °und, that is the intoned unchanging So^d “r Tntont" Is lhe Lon ? ““"f Song. he is the onward. ’ ning the ma g>cal vibration, Om, he goes “Hun, verily, I have praised in song, therefore thou, my son, art one only.” CHHANDOGYA UPANISHAD 33 Thus Kaushitaki addressed his son. “But do thou meditate upon the rays; then thine shall be many.” So far concerning the Bright Powers. And so concerning the Self. He who is the principal Life, him one should reverence as the Loud Chant Song; for intoning the magical vibration, Om, he goes onward. “Him, verily, I have praised in song, therefore thou, my son, art one only.” Thus Kaushitaki addressed his son. “But do thou meditate upon the Lives as many; then mine shall be many.” And so, verily, that which is the Loud Ch^nt Song, that is the intoned unchanging Sound; that which is the intoned unchanging Sound, that is the Loud Chant Song. Thus knowing, that which has been ill chanted from the station of the sacrificial priest, he perfectly fulfils,—he perfectly fulfils. This earth, verily, is the Rig verse; the fire of Life is the Sama chant. This Sama chant rests upon the Rig verse. Therefore, the Sama chant is sung resting upon the Rig verse. This earth is Sa; the fire of Life is Ama. This makes Sama. The interspace, verily, is the Rig verse; the great Breath is the Sama. This Sama chant rests upon the Rig verse. Therefore, the Sama chant is sung resting upon the Rig verse. The interspace is Sa; the great Breath is Ama. This makes Sama. % The heavens, verily, are the Rig verse; the Sun is the Sama chant. This Sama chant rests upon the Rig verse. Therefore, the Sama chant is sung resting upon the Rig verse. The heavens are Sa; the Sun is Ama. This makes Sama. The lunar mansions, verily, are the Rig verse; the Moon is the Sama chant. This Sama chant rests upon the Rig verse. Therefore, the Sama chant is sung resting upon the Rig verse. The lunar mansions are Sa;.the Moon is Ama. This makes Sama. And so that which is the white radiance of the Sun is the Rig verse; the indigo-coloured, very dark, is the Sama chant. This Sama chant rests upon the Rig verse. Therefore, the Sama chant is sung resting upon the Rig verse. The white radiance is Sa; the indigo-coloured, very dark, is Ama. This makes Sama. And so this divine Man, golden-coloured, who is seen within the Sun, has a golden beard and golden hair, even to the tips of the nails he is all as bright gold. As is the golden lotus, so are his two eyes. His name is the Highest, for He is raised on high above all evils. He who thus knows, rises, verily, above all evils. The Rig verse and the Sama chant are His two songs. There¬ fore, the Loud Chant Song is His. Therefore, he who sings the Loud Chant Song is named Chanter, for he is the singer of this. He is Lord of the realms beyond that Sun, and of the desires of the Bright Powers. So far concerning the Bright Powers. c. J. ON THE SCREEN OF TIME T HE Student is never solemn. The rest of us, when we first met after the Convention, were feeling, if not solemn, in any case somewhat subdued; for although our verdict, if put to it, would probably have been that it would rank as the deepest and best of the Conventions held so far, the fact remained that many of us had been active participants, and can anyone be satisfied with his contribution when he knows that life itself would not be too much to give, and when necessarily he measures his mite against the single Word which would “put the spirit of a lion into a dead fox”? We must learn, however, when reviewing the past, not only to see where we fell short of our own ideal, that we may approach it more nearly when similar conditions recur, but so to detach ourselves from the picture that we can see the event as a whole, and thus gauge its total effect on the different planes of being. “It was a great success”, said the Ancient; “due in large measure to unity of spirit, to self-forgetfulness, to trust. Distant Branches of the Society, and members who are not able to attend in person, are participating more and more,—many of them devoting the whole aay to intellectual and spiritual co-operation with us, for love of the Masters, for love of their Cause. This is a distinct addition to our Conventions, because such contributions are likely to be impersonal in the real sense of the word.” “At first”, the Student remarked, “it made me feel as if I were something the dog had brought in and intended to bury later on, when he had time. I quickly reacted from that, however, and after a glance at the Empyrean, just to remind myself it was still there, I tried to hold on to that recognition with one hand, and to the feeling of being ‘ yon object’ with the other,—and then, to think. The result—with the Convention still working in me—was quite illuminating; or in any case I found it so. ‘You can and must become a ch£la,’ they had said,—for that seemed to me to be the keynote of every¬ thing that was said. From one hand, dismally, something murmured, ‘Im¬ possible!’ From the other hand, serenely, something whispered, ‘There is nothing real in you except that which is chela already.’ And there was I, sitting in the middle! First, and deliberately, I examined the voice that said ‘Impossible’, for I knew enough, on general principles, to be sure that this came from below, and it had been suggested at Convention that it is far easier to study the make-up and ways of our lower nature than of the higher. Near by, it sounded like a single voice; but I recalled its instigations of the past, and examined them, to find that instead of a single voice, scores of differ¬ ent voices had blended, as the strands of a rope unite to make it one. An incident of several months ago came back to me: a decision, and a wrong deci¬ sion. It was child’s-play, at that distance, to separate the converging but 34 ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 35 separate strands: there was sloth, and the desire for comfort; there were the different promptings of Rajas; and then, turning quickly to look at the stifled protest from above, I found that it, too, instead of being a single voice, had been made up of a multitude,—pleading, warning, reminding, threatening. ‘It looks as if the difference of one vote did it,’ I said to myself. Then, in a flash: ‘A house divided against itself, surely; but the government rests with the majority, and every decision you make, from morning till night—what you wear and eat and say and do or leave undone—is the result of a poll; and a single vote may decide it. Kill or convert one of those swinish elementals, and you might reverse the polarity of the whole business. One vote out of hundreds—probably thousands—may be all that is needed to pitch you headlong into ch£laship!’ And the same thing is true of others. We think we’re a million miles from it—a paralyzing projection of our rationalistic or wiseacre or false-humility litter—when our actual experience proves that there may be no more than one miserable and already half-starved elemental —perhaps no more than the wilting Willy who keeps on saying, ‘I’m so tired; I’m so tired’—tottering between us and Victory! If it’s the last straw that breaks the camel’s back, and the last drop that finally capsizes the boat, it’s also the last bite at his shackles that sets the prisoner free,—just the thousandth of an inch between himself and liberty!” The Ancient beamed at him. “A happy thought”, he said. “There may be those who will act on it.” Then, after a pause,—quizzically: “I hope you will!” “There was more laughter during Convention than at any I have attended before. It was odd.” The Philosopher interjected this, evidently seeking an explanation. “Tears and laughter are not far removed”, suggested the Historian. “Some¬ times I think there must be much laughter in the Lodge. A man who fought in Mesopotamia during the war, told me that when all his brother officers had been killed, and he was left with a handful of men, most of them wounded, and every hope gone,—jokes had poured out of him for the first time in his life, quite spontaneously, and that his men had responded as if they hadn’t a care in the world.” “What became of him, incidentally?” asked the Student. “They fought on, and were rescued: help from Headquarters.” “Good omen!” “That depends upon the point of view”, the Historian retorted. “You don’t stop to ask what the rescue cost the rescuers,—or how the rescued felt about it! So far as we are concerned, the Convention, in spite of its success , would be a tragic failure unless we fought our way through .” “Translate, translate!” the Student protested. “Quite unnecessary”, replied the Historian. “What was the Convention about, anyhow! The point is that as the fruit of a united aspiration, of a common, unselfish effort,—someone shall break through to carry the Light forward,—to ‘keep the link unbroken’, as H. P. B. phrased it. Only a ch£la 36 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY can do that,—but he need not be a ch£la of high degree. The only requisite is that he shall be a product of what has already been produced,—a child of the inner life of The Theosophical Society. Possibly he is not yet in our ranks, —though I hope he is—several of him! You will remember, however, the Parable of the labourers in the vineyard. Pray heaven there be no murmuring should the last again prove to be first. I do not think there would be. Jeal¬ ousy is a very low and vulgar fault. It seems to me that our present member¬ ship is extraordinarily free from it. Those who win through will be the first to acknowledge, and with joy, that they owe their liberty to the sacrifice and devotion of the many, who for years have toiled, apparently unrecognized and unrewarded,—and who have not toiled for pennies, not even for spiritual pennies, but solely for love of the Lord of the vineyard, and of the high and noble ends for which he labours.” “Any criticisms of the Convention?” asked the Recorder. “Several”, the Student replied promptly. “For one thing, I do not think that nearly enough was said under the head of misconceptions, which flourish like weeds, while truths of any kind cannot so much as stay alive unless cease¬ lessly tended and trimmed, watered and cultivated, shielded and sprayed. How, otherwise, can a truth live in this world—truth being of the Spirit! I know that I, for one, sprout misconceptions overnight. A few I have torn up by the roots; others I am cultivating lovingly, vigorously, as if they were choice plants,—roses or what not. I believe I have as good an understanding of chelaship, for instance, as most students of Theosophy. I know that it involves becoming consciously the pupil of one who has attained to Wisdom, that is to say, a Master. I have bravely amputated the idea that a chela is one who ‘might have descended from a long line of maiden aunts.’ But I often suspect that I should be better off mentally if my mind, on that sub¬ ject, were bare soil, thoroughly worked over with lime, than I am to-day with the miscellaneous vegetation which encumbers it.” “My friend”, said the Ancient, “while what you say is true enough as applied to some people, I am afraid that in your case the trouble is different and perhaps more serious: I am afraid that you know a great deal more than you do,—which is only another way of saying that you are self-indulgent and lazy.” This was plain speech indeed; but the Student did not flinch. He is devoted to the Ancient, and the Ancient to him; besides which, whatever his faults, he never quarrels. “I plead guilty”, he said; “but I stick to my point none the less: I think that more ought to have been said at the Convention about misconceptions of Theosophy, including the farcical pretensions of those who unwarrantably use the name. Have you heard of Mrs. Besant’s latest? Having discovered ‘the great world father’, or ‘world teacher’, in the person of Krishnamurti, she now announces that the Brahmin wife of an Englishman —a Mrs. Rukmini Arundale—is the ‘great world mother’; and she makes this announcement as ‘President of the Theosophical Society’! I wish she would call herself ‘Pope of the Universal Church’, or ‘Empress of the United ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 37 Indies’, and have done with it. Her unconscious bouffonneries would kill Theosophy if anything could. No wonder that misinformed people, who accept her claims and the claims of her followers at their face value, and who imagine, therefore, that she represents in some way the movement of Madame Blavatsky and Judge,—despise Theosophy and all its supposed works.” “Well”, said the Philosopher, “I suppose, in the last analysis, all of us select our own gods, and it seems to me to be good Theosophy to do so; but Mrs. Besant’s mania for selecting gods for other people, though humorous, would be neither original nor noteworthy, if she did not call herself a Theosophist while doing it. No need to worry about her followers; they want that sort of thing, or they would not follow her. No need to worry about her gods either. Some people would rather appear ridiculous than not appear at all. No, there would be nothing serious about it, from first to last, if it were not for the harm she does to a word— Theosophy—which we have such good reason to respect and love. The more she misuses it, the greater our obligation to defend it,—above all, by trying to exemplify it in the sanity of our own lives.” The Historian now closed the subject. “I fully agree”, he said; “but you don’t understand Mrs. Besant: she’s just playing with dolls,—again.” His emphasis on “again”, made his meaning sufficiently clear. “Enough said”, the Recorder commented; then, turning to the Student: “You have other criticisms of the Convention?” “Yes”, replied the Student; “I have: I wish that something had been said about misdirected effort. I believe that a great deal of honest effort goes to waste. There are members who work at themselves, year after year, from a strong sense of duty—the study of Theosophy having convinced them that they should strive to conquer their faults, and to move as far as they can along the path of spiritual progress—but who never seem to get anywhere. I have my eye on the Philosopher: comment, please!” “The aim of such members, as you have defined it”, the Philosopher replied, “sounds to me to be dreadfully soggy. I don’t wonder they never get any¬ where! ‘To move as far as they can along the path of spiritual progress’; that’s just it. Listen: Smith met Brown in a London fog. ‘Where are you going, Brown?’ he asked. ‘Oh, I’m tramping along, tramping along’, Brown answered. ‘ Where are you going to ? ’ ‘As far as I can ’, said Brown. ‘ Where do you expect to land?’ asked Smith. ‘I don’t know’, said Brown. I am afraid that is very much like the efforts of some students of Theosophy,— and of other students too, for that matter. It would be wiser to hold on to a lamp-post until they find out where they are! “It would be better to dream dreams of scaling impossible heights, than to ‘tramp along’ in that resigned or lugubrious spirit; better still, to dream those dreams, with a definite objective for the next month’s effort. Vagueness of aim, however, is not the only trouble. For lack of knowing where they are, or, to drop my simile, for lack of self-knowledge, people waste their time and energy in attacking a surface symptom, while leaving the disease untouched. Think of some man whose chief fault is egotism. He always thinks that he 38 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY knows better than others, and in any dispute or controversy, he is convinced that he is right. Even when forced to recognize that he was partly wrong, he will manage to convince himself that the balance of rightness rested in his favour. We will assume that at one time he was explosive in his annoyance when people opposed his will or his ideas; that, as a result of his explosiveness, he was constantly in trouble, and that he was brought at last to realize that he must try to control his tongue and his manners. Assume that he works at that with considerable success over a period of years, helped by the fact that whenever he does explode, he suffers. He has connected cause and effect to that extent. But he is supposed to be, and tells himself that he is, an aspir¬ ant for discipleship. Has he ever asked himself what causes the tendency to explode? If so, is it possible that his answer has been, ‘Force of character’, or ‘Quick temper’, rather than the truth, which is ‘Egotism’? In any case we will assume that he remains blind, even intellectually, to his major defect; that it never occurs to him to connect what he suffers from his ‘explosiveness’, with its underlying cause; that, partly for this reason, he continues to like and to admire in himself the very trait which his best friends detest, and that he actually feeds his fault by his admiration of it, and therefore, of course, makes progress toward discipleship impossible. He is moving, in so far as he is acquiring self-control; but, like the man in the fog, he is moving in circles. At times he feels this, and becomes rather discouraged; but he quickly recovers from that, because fundamentally he has an opinion of himself which he has probably built up in the course of many lives,—a sense of superiority to others which it would take a surgical operation to remove, unless he should someday wake up sufficiently to begin the long labour of undermining it for himself. Oddly enough, an individual of that type can say in all sincerity that he knows he is a vile and miserable sinner, and perhaps will weep, with equal sincerity, when he thinks of some Master’s sacrifice and suffering! Inevitably, of course, he reinforces his dominant vice by the inferences he draws from these per¬ formances. Everything serves that kind of mill as grist. It is omnivorous. Hopeless failure will be seen only in terms of the pluck with which it was endured. Life, in effect, has no lessons, except that the sense of superiority is uncommonly well founded. “That is only one type out of many. My text is that we cannot expect to get anywhere in the spiritual life until we become sufficiently detached from the personality to see it with some measure of truth. Sweeping condemnation is just as unintelligent as self-satisfaction. If you need a horse and own one, and cannot exchange it for another, it is certainly wiser to get to know it, and its ways both good and bad, than to persuade yourself on the one hand that it’s a gem, when it isn’t, or to curse it all day long as useless, when you are compelled to use it all the time,—more especially in this case, seeing that it was you who made the brute,—with the joke again on you inasmuch as the same old horse, or, rather, what you make of him in this life, will turn up in your next life as the only means you will have, either to plough your fields or to drag your chariot through the skies.” ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 39 -I’m sorry, but I’m mixed”, said our Visitor. “Are you comparing the personality to a u ho J se ^ mixed”, the Philosopher replied, laugh- * U ^Some & oi us have a dreadful way of using analogies without explaining them,— a habit which I condemn strongly in oti*.! J^IthTi ?££% the personality to a horse; I was trying o conve detachment, as serve us as an instrument, and that we should study * ™th * have added which they so largely consist What we nee 0 back to its original rea "y “r° k ^i£ that someone asked him what was the trouble. Inmp^ ® ism is bad pocket a catting from the m« ^ ^ ^ grieves ™ £XJtk' “^“3SaS«“ ^ o^the’tenth^imiversmy'o£ l the e Bntkh 1 auack|on t Ostend^and^Zeebre^gw— the ‘Vindictive’—one of the most splendi g , mmz&ssm at Daventry to broadcast speeches at the ceremonies I ISilfie but they have been done by Ge = or £* is. I find German vote, and contemptib £ ^ doubtkss inspired the idiot or it less offensive than the pu co ld-blooded murder committed SLSve 1 rtf fitted for ’the pure love of God’. 4 o THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY Both kinds should be hung, but the ‘pure’ and pious murderer should be whipped through the streets first. The Daventry authorities should be treated on the same principle,—vigorously too. I know they do not represent the real England, any more than the Germans and Irish here, represent the real America; but I fear they represent England to about the same extent. “Your news item is almost worth a cable to the London Times , the His¬ torian commented. “Something like this: 'Referring Daventry and Ostend anniversary speeches, a loyal Christian urges no further public references to Crucifixion as likely revive feeling against Jews, contrary to spirit of Locarno (sob).’ ” “I wish you would send it”, said the Student. “Useless”, the Historian replied; “even slightly dangerous: Daventry and the Pacifists would think it an admirable suggestion. They might even intro¬ duce a bill in Parliament to give effect to it legally,—and heaven knows what Parliament would do with the bill,—probably compromise by allowing draped references to the Crucifixion, on Good Fridays and in Churches only. Things said in Churches don’t really count, you know. “Well, we must think of other signs of the times which tell a very different story; of such a book as Religio Militis , by Austin Hopkinson, which is really noble in spirit and purpose, and which I hope will be reviewed at length in the October issue of the Quarterly; and of such articles as those by C. O. G. Douie, entitled ‘Memories of 1914-1918’, which are appearing in The Nine¬ teenth Century and After (probably the best of the English magazines). Some¬ times I wonder whether, ‘ as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats , the King is not separating both nations and individuals, more effectively than was possible during the war. Men could then hide themselves in uniforms, others were swept along by the current of mob-emotion; while now the need for disguise is removed; the current of emotion, if there be any, runs toward Pacifism and the condonation of evil. In that sense, men are as naked as ever they are likely to be; they are not afraid to say what they think; and while it is true that such nakedness is always ugly, and that no man can rightly say anything until he is afraid to say anything, the fact remains that the present condition of things is almost ideal, if it be desired, as I am supposing, ‘that the thoughts of many hearts’ shall be revealed.” “I am sorry to change the subject”, the Philosopher remarked at this point; “but I am anxious not to lose the opportunity of referring to what I said about The Face of Silence , that book by Dhan Gopal Mukerji, to which you gave a good deal of space in the last ‘Screen’. You quoted me correctly as saying that ‘the author is inclined to see things couleur de rose.' In order to determine, so far as possible, how much ‘haze of glory’ he had really added to the facts, either by omission or commission, I sent for two books about Rama Krishna, both published in India by his followers. One is entitled Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, or , The Ideal Man for India and for the World , and the other and larger book (nearly 800 pages), Life of Sri Ramakrishna. These make it perfectly clear that the author omitted anything and everything ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 4i that would not be pleasing and attractive in his very interesting, stimulating and instructive picture of the life of a ‘holy man’ as lived in India. The testimony of Rama Krishna’s most ardent native admirers proves—in any case to a student of Theosophy—that he Whs not even a chela, much less a Mahatma; that he was a remarkable psychic who had been side-tracked by his psychism, and that, if further assurance were needed of India s present spiritual blindness, it could be found in the attribution of the title of Mahatma, Great Soul, to such men as Gandhi and the central figure of Mukerji s boo . Take one fact out of hundreds that would demonstrate the truth of what I say: Rama Krishna was everlastingly going off into trances—in the midst of conversations and at any other time—over which he had no control what- ever, and from which his disciples had to rouse him by shouting in his ear, or by violent shaking. There have been many Christian saints who were no better in that respect; but we know what to think of them—how far they were from chelaship—and at best we can think no better of this ‘holy man , though I must add that he was extraordinarily tolerant in his attitude toward those whose religious beliefs were different from his own. “We are back at chelaship again!” said the Recorder, “and I am going to introduce now, before we adjourn, my pike de resistance on that subject. I appealed to Cavd for something of the kind—I am supposed to be undu y busy at this time—and Cav<f, who already was swamped with other work, wrote what follows out of charity: ... , “Much has been said and written on the subject of chelaship; little under¬ stood I remember in the old days that anyone who took up a vegetarian diet, wore his hair long, and would not kill a fly for anything, was considered as a probable lay-chela, at least. And if he went to India—well that ended it ; when he returned he surely was one. No wonder dear Judge often looked so wistful and so tired. Those were simple, innocent days enough,—the forms of misunderstanding were just so crude; but though the forms have changed, the misunderstanding still remains. “I who have written much on the subject, should seem hardly the one to try it again, especially when others, far better qualified, have also apparently failed The words are there, clear enough one would suppose; and yet over them rests some kind of an enchantment that prevents the great majority of readers from grasping their significance. Rather do strangely m istaken notions follow their perusal, if any definite notions at all. What emboldens me to another effort grows from my recalling to mind the initial experiences of one student many years ago, which, as has been my privilege on occasion he told me of in some detail at varying intervals. It happens that personal experience will sometimes strike home when a general treatment fails. “It was back in the old days. He had read many books with profit, but then came the first volume of Letters That Have Helped Me. Thatwas the turning point for him, he told me, from Letter XII on, through ‘ To Aspirants for Chelaship.’ He knew then what he wanted, what he must have: and here were his practical directions into which Light on the Path, The Voice of the 42 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY Silence , and the rest, fitted perfectly. He was determined to become -a chela, to find his Master and to be accepted by him. He read and re-read until he almost knew those pages by heart; he studied them, striving to gain their utmost meaning, all that they offered of radiant hope, every possible hint of the best manner in which to proceed. “One fact stood out boldly: he must do this for himself, in silence and alone. Then he saw that the becoming ‘ a chela in reality ’ meant the acquirement of ‘certain spiritual principles’, which obviously he completely lacked since he had no least idea where he should apply. ‘So much the better’, he said at this point, ‘there is more to this than appears’; and he kept repeating to himself the words: ‘You must then reach a point other than that where you now stand, before you can even ask to be taken as a chela on probation.’ ‘Fine’, he said to this, ‘ nothing cheap about it. It takes a man, and will make a man.’ “What ‘spiritual principles’? These were not specified. ‘No harm’, he said, ‘ in having them all! ’ So he looked himself over very carefully and searchingly for several days in this light, and concluded at the end that he had rudiments of some spiritual principles, ‘ physical and astral bodies of them ’ in his phrasing, but not in the least any ‘ Manas or Buddhi of them ’, which he shrewdly suspected was the meaning intended by calling them ‘spiritual’. Of others he frankly confessed that he could not find a trace,—the class, there¬ fore, he resolved first to strive after; his reasoning being that he could more readily build a physical or astral thing than create on higher planes. So one by one and little by little, he struggled at set acquirements, his eyes always on his coveted goal, which he loved the more as he dwelt with it and toiled for it. This helped him greatly with the underscored injunction ‘to get rid of the strength of the personal idea’, which at first was difficult; for after a while he found that living with his goal and increasing his love for it, preoccupied him more and more, and he had less place and less time to consider himself, save as a limitation of the vision of his goal. So on these lines he constituted himself a disciple, acting both as guru and aspirant, constantly re-adjusting his angles of approach, modifying his rules, increasing his demands upon the lower side of himself, which he saw as the neophyte, as his efforts opened the path before him. At one place he went astray for a while. He looked about for some one to serve. First he thought of Judge,—Judge whom he would much have loved to serve. But a little reflection showed him how dangerous this attempt would be for a long time to come, and that even to try to serve Judge would probably end in Judge’s serving him—the reverse of his purpose. Then he considered several of the less important members, making a few indefinite efforts. Finally the light dawned. ‘lama fool ’, he said: ‘ the Letters tell me; the chela I must serve is the Theosophical Society’; and he did, in every way he could devise or discover, for the sake of that goal which quivered, bathed in golden light, in his heart. One reaction he had was revealing. He told me of his surprise when a fellow student commented on the hardship of working alone and unnoticed, 43 ON THE SCREEN OF TIME and that he had replied: ■ That ^' h g 0 “«tn””hc woods'and »ed >» — ■» unnoticed until I have made m\ sel There must be a distinct limit .•Did he succeed? is tto»u. this reach can to what may be revealed of the depths o y understand what the be said. Later on he told me that he had come ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ Christian Master meant in the P hr “ ’ because so much higher and the Path extended, the Goal was farther ahead because so ^ ^ nobler; what had been one S now perceived; the radiance flooding not stop to possess, because of the g y P it was a n he and all the Path was the very life and presence o the Master, t . ,, The best rules to form a young man are: alone upon what has passed in company; value others that deserve it. Temple. to talk little, to hear much, to reflect to distrust one's own opinions, and LETTERS TO STUDENTS Dear April 18th, 1910. ou do not write very often, but I can say sincerely that when you do it is well worth while. Indeed so worth while, that, as Editor of the Quarterly, I must ask why you hide your light under a bushel, and do not give others the benefit of your ideas. You can write, and anyone in our ranks who can wnte should write, for writers are few. Therefore, will you not consider this an official appeal from the Quarterly to send in whatever is in your head to say which you think would be useful ? I prefer leaving the choice of subjects to the writer whenever possible, for his work is likely to be more spontaneous and vital as he delivers his message from his heart instead of grinding out something on order. 6 It is an interesting time, not only from the general worldly standpoint where much is going on that is new and important, but particularly from our special standpoint, because our present status and work are all brand new. Never before has the Movement lasted through the end of the century; there- ore there are no precedents, no experience, no customs, to fall back upon. is a problem changing daily, from the standpoint of the Masters themselves and hence is of intense interest to all of us who try to catch the ideas of the Masters and carry them out in our work. What will they consider it wise to try next: Is this or that effort a success in these new conditions, or have thk? P T n °u W ° rth Wh ' le? Sha11 we tf y t0 move in that direction or in Question mlrl T 0r for th&t? Life is - in a <*nse. * constant h mil. jnark, or rather our theosophical work is; and, as that is our life, ” S * ful1 of P^ancy, full of surprises. We never know from day to day what change or turn of events may come, and we must all of us stand Ind^m I**"? 7 t0 thr ° W r y 311 ° Ur conce P t i° ns of what is wise in the work and travel along an entirely different road. The partial ability to do this is the great heritage we have from H P B She stirred up our minds so violently, brushed away so many traditions and customs of thought, forced us to absorb ourselves in a philosophy so utterly JmN that Tr that W6 ’ m ° St ° f US ’ Can face a revolution overboard ' ° rdlnary P erson gasping for breath. We threw . ‘ ' ’ cr inspiration, all our inherited preconceptions of life and religion, and took a new system. Now, with this freedom of mind, and lack prejudice, and capacity for wide judgments and tolerant opinions we are wSZ ylltd T r* nti “" y W ‘ Stern way 0f thinki " E ' “ nd «»'«• into Western ideas and ideals in a way that few Westerners seem able to do. We have acquired an immense perspective: we judge from a srreat height ■ and can respect and understand the other fellow’s point of view. When it dfffem from ours we usually know why, and sympathize instead of blaming 44 LETTERS TO STUDENTS 45 All these reflections are but following along your train of thought as indi¬ cated in your last letter. I hope you will remember something of what you wrote, otherwise I shall be unintelligible. But it all makes life very inter¬ esting, very stimulating, almost exciting, and it is, a pleasure to see that you appreciate and understand it so well. I meant to write more, but my available time is up and I send this scrap instead of waiting. Yours as always, C. A. Griscom. November 12th, 1911. Dear- It has been so long since you wrote your letter of April 16th that I wonder whether you remember having done so at all, and not yet receiving a reply. But your letter has been on my desk all these months, and I have been look¬ ing forward to a time when I could answer it. There is so much to do and there is so much going on, that time slips by amazingly. Do you feel the spiritual current which is flowing under the surface of things? It is stronger than it has been for several thousand years, and before very long, not perhaps in our life time, but soon, we are going to have one of the greatest religious revivals which the world has ever seen. In many ways the time is ripe now, but not in all ways, for there are a lot of ideas in the mind of the world which are obstructions, and which first will have to be swept away. Take such an idea as Socialism. So long as people think that it will remedy pain, trouble and sin, we cannot hope that they will fall back on fundamental religious principles for their solution of the problems of life and living. Therefore,'before we have the actual coming to the surface of the new religious movement, we shall have to bring Socialism all the way to the surface and let it prove itself a failure. There are other obstructions of the same kind. So I can picture the Masters working ceaselessly to ripen all these modern Western fads and fancies, until the force in them comes to a head, explodes and exhausts itself. Then will come the time we have been working for and dreaming dreams about for so long. I think we shall all be there to do our quota in the great work. And it is not all going to be religious propaganda, by any means. That would mean, after all, only a partial regeneration of the world. It needs attention on all planes and in all ways; and, unless I am very much mistaken, the plans contemplate a pretty general housecleaning which will go from the top to the bottom of human life. There are a mass of silly ideas about democracy and republics and the fitness of people to govern themselves, which have to be knocked on the head at the same time. It is going to be a very interesting world to live in when these great forces begin to move outward and to express themselves in human action and human institutions. Let us all pray that we shall be there, and shall be fitted to 46 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY play our little parts. Let us do what we can to get ready now for our share of the work. No one can be spared: all will be needed. How to prepare? Well, it has been borne in upon me recently, that we already are, inside, the very highest thing of which we can think. I mean that literally. I do not believe that we can even imagine a state of being, or a kind of virtue or power, which does not already belong to our souls. Just as we are so often told that we cannot know a thing until we are that thing, so I believe that we cannot think or imagine any thing which we are not already. So our way to prepare ourselves for the future work is to do two things. One is to externalize here and now what we already are inside; and the other is to think of the thing we should like to be, and the part we should like to play, and ask the Master to give us that. We shall only be asking him for what we already are, and for what he already wants us to be and to do. Bid high, too! Hitch your chariot to a star. Do not be afraid to ask for too much. The Masters like audacity. But all this has very little to do with your letter. It is what is in my mind and heart to say, however, so I say it. In your letter you tell me a little bit of some of the trials and troubles and circurrfstances of your life. You have indeed had a hard time, but instead of sympathizing with you I feel almost inclined to congratulate you, for it is only to those who are worth while that the Masters give that individual training which is designed to bring out the best that is in them; and it is evident to me, both from what you say and from your point of view in saying it, that you have been getting that personal training. But we grow very tired at times, and then it helps us to receive a word of encouragement and cheer from a fellow disciple. ******** With kindest regards to I am, Sincerely, C. A. Griscom. October 24th, 1912. Dear- I have left unanswered your letter of June 23rd, but as I do not usually take from three to six months before answering letters, I shall content myself, by way of apology, with the statement that I went to Europe early in July, and only returned a fortnight ago. I like your letters even if they do come at long intervals; and this one in particular was of interest to me because I was extremely fond of-, and was the person in New York with whom he corresponded regularly during his recent years of travel. I shall miss him; and yet I think that his best interests were served by his getting a good rest before the next period of manifestation. He had gone about as far as there was any hope of his going in this life. letters to students 47 . , , , r am sure would be a matter of great It is very interesting mdeed , , d be the means of bringing you, and gratification to him, that his dea ^ f ° hood int0 touch with the Church, the other members m your neig ’ lergym an who conducted the What you write ate *» service pleases me exceedingly, and P ^ the society connection to the benefit of the cle gym ^ and the time left you to do Then what you say of your h ideas—about ourselves first, and then it, interests me, as we all a . ted—and these are wrong ideas, funda- about those with whom we are assorted and because vre areassum- mentally wrong, because we leave jut actua lly do the things in the ,,,e him, and that the amount of this,, wh h ^ upon how much he con- that of the world, depends not upon ou 1 - tQ be £a ithful, obedient and siders it wise, at that time, to iS 1V J- much making ourselves unobstructed willing servants; but our pa P J Therefore what we accomplish, in channels for his force to work thr gh- our intelligence, our opportum- a worldly sense, depends, ^ upon ^ abil Y, tQ have a big outward ties, but upon whether or not the timers rip ^ ^ ^ movement that will make a sp g mid dle-aged; until 1675. Yet when Molinos was never heard of until ears later, he is said to have he was arrested by the Inquisition seven or g who did this? had a million followers. Do you suppose {ollower , H e tried Ignatius Loyola worked fifteen years^ g^ ^ failureS) t in S o one thing after another and llowers Then when he was middle-aged far as they trained him and h ' ^ WQrn out> the hour struck; and before hfdira v"eS later,.’the ^iSldTthat ** *"*■ ^ WS S6Ven f ° ll0WerS did this? , ;<■ to be ready, when the hour strikes, to serve My friend, all we have to do is how ignor ant we a, channels for the M “ l “*.bounded great institutions with «-> -a » d ™*‘- But ,heycle “' not know whether it is the plan S thought that it was not; but in fa this da, and genet..,on or noti ^ve ^ < ^ cha „ ging , and recent year, I have begun to believe th ^ the outer and that we are still to see a mov m ueh; because we know that his powe'y andrihekittle wdiich^we can contribute, wil, be » « —• 48 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY for the best interests of the world. The main thing is to be ready, always ready; and we have been given many years of peace and quiet in which to get ready. As is said in the beginning of the second part of Light on the Path , we all of us must feel how inadequately prepared we are: so we all have plenty to do. Please give my best wishes to-. With kindest regards, I am, Sincerely yours, C. A. Griscom. September 30th, 1913. Dear- I was very glad to get your letter of the 17th of August, and I am sorry that circumstances have prevented an earlier reply. It interested me greatly as illustrating not only your, but what I feel sure is the point of view of many others .There has been a great deal of bewilderment and honest doubt as to the future, and as to the course which is being followed at New York. This, of course, is because of our limitations here. We too had to learn, had to feel our way, had to break entirely new ground; and all this took time. I think most members fail to realize that never before in the history of the world was there just the situation which followed the successful carrying of the Movement over the century. The Lodge itself was experimenting, and had to feel its way. It wished to push the wedge, forged by H. P. B. and by Judge, as far into this material civilization as was possible, and the Masters had very limited instruments with which to do it, and they had to watch most carefully for all kinds of inevitable reactions, both now and hereafter What was the line of least resistance? Undoubtedly, in this country, some¬ thing along Christian lines; and so, as we had sense enough to see it, the work took on a Christian colouring. We deliberately tried to put the accumulated power and light, back of our Theosophical ideals, into the ordinary religious atmosphere of the day. We have been unexpectedly successful, and will be much more so. We make the past work of H. P. B. and Judge fruitful and we gam ablemcruits to carry on the ideals. A few, a remarkably few,’ like in England, and one or two over here, thought they saw in this some kind of departure from, and treachery to, the teachings and work of H P B They left to do what they thought right. Another class, considerably larger’ waited in some doubt and perplexity, but with faith, and perhaps some hope’ and are now beginning to see light. * You ask if the T. S. really did come close to being wiped out. Yes. It was nip and tuck for a time, and those who carried it through, both inside and out, were so exhausted that for some years there was little doing but marking \ t ™ 6 , and pre P ann S for the future. But that period of resting and preparing ended some years ago, and since then the work has grown more and more letters to students 49 T , • cf :ii the time for wide-spread outer activity, virile and vigorous. It « ^ blic acc laim. Those things bring b” the live Lire is there, healthy, gro.inf, and get.™ stronger day by day. ****** * * Sincerely, C. A. Griscom. P. s. If you get discouraged a f Kali Yuga is warfare,— and we, who see _ ’ :„ fnrv nut of defeat. It is better to be unborn than untaught- Leighton. He must be a wise man who knows what is wise.—X enophon. REPORT OF THE ANNUAL CONVENTION OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY Morning Session On the morning of Saturday, April 28th, 1928, at 10.30, the Annual Convention of The Theosophical Society was called to order at 64 Washington Mews, New York, by the Chairman of the Executive Committee, Mr. Charles Johnston. Temporary organization was effected by the election of Mr. Johnston as Temporary Chairman of the Convention, and Miss Julia Chickering as Temporary Secretary. It was voted that a Committee on Credentials should be appointed by the Chair, with instructions to report as soon as practicable. The Committee appointed was: Mr. Henry Bedinger Mitchell, Treasurer T. S.; Miss Isabel E. Perkins, Secre¬ tary T. S.; Miss Martha E. Youngs, Assistant Treasurer. Address of the Temporary Chairman Mr. Johnston: During the period in which the Committee on Credentials carries out its work, it is the privilege of the Temporary Chairman to try to express to the members present the very sincere welcome of the local Branch, and to try to express for all of us something of the profound happiness and real joy that we have in each one of these Conventions. As the years pass, our treasures multiply and we add Convention to Convention, each one with its measure of spiritual life and, let us hope, of permanent accomplishment. The Convention this year, it has been said, should have the note of stillness, that stillness in which it becomes easier to perceive the spiritual presence of the Masters. Perhaps we should use that stillness also in another way, to try to look ahead. You will remember the letters in The Occult World where a Master speaks of an avalanche in the Karakorum Mountains, and of taking advantage of the intense stillness that followed it to try to see the spiritual facts of the situation, in detail. The first thing we should remember is that a period of stillness is the very opposite of a period of relaxation. There must be nothing like resting on our oars, no cessation of the highest kind of effort. On the contrary, we should use such a period to see what dangers lie ahead. The enemy has not been reformed or converted, although the enemy always tries to persuade us that he has been. We have a tragic example of the way to win the war and lose the peace, in the world to-day. We shall be wise to take advantage of that world situation to notice what are the factors which caused the victors to lose the peace, and to guard against those dangers in ourselves. Perhaps the first is the possibility of jealousy, always subtle and generally working under the skin; then wounded vanity, as there was in some of the nations during the war and after it; then material self-interest of one kind or another—seeking something for oneself; then, perhaps most dangerous of all, sentimentalism masquerading as charity. If we keep these in mind 50 T. S. ACTIVITIES 5i and are on our guard against them, we shall be in less danger of losing the peace as the victors in the World War are tragically losing the peace which they won. We must remember that the enemy is not converted, has not turned good; and that the enemy in ourselves is as vigorous as ever. So in this Convention let us see the dangers, and at the same time let us see the splendid opportunities which may be used to our profit if we will guard against these dangers. We have an opportunity such as no people have had for thou¬ sands of years. We hardly realize the greatness of it, and what a splendid gift the Masters have given us in that opportunity. As the Convention advances, perhaps that will be brought home to us more and more clearly and with greater promise and greater joy. The Committee is ready to report. Report of the Committee on Credentials Mr. H. B. Mitchell: The Committee has examined the credentials submitted, and finds that the following Branches are represented either by delegates or by proxy, entitled to cast ninety-eight votes, and representing six different countries: Aussig, Aussig, Czecho-Slovakia Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio Gateshead, Gateshead, England Hope, Providence, R. I. Jehoshua, Sanfemando, Venezuela Krishna, South Shields, England Middletown, Middletown, Ohio Newcastle, Newcastle-on-Tyne, England Whitley Bay, Whitley New York, New York, N. Y. Norfolk, Norfolk, England Oslo, Oslo, Norway Pacific, Los Angeles, California Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Toronto, Toronto, Canada Venezuela, Caracas, Venezuela Virya, Denver, Colorado After the Report of the Committee on Credentials had, on motion, been accepted, the Temporary Chairman asked that the permanent organization of the Convention be effected. On motion duly made and seconded, Mr. H. B. Mitchell, as President of the New York Branch, was unanimously elected Permanent Chairman, Miss Perkins being elected Permanent Secre¬ tary, and Miss Chickering Permanent Assistant Secretary. Mr. Mitchell then took the Chair. Address of the Permanent Chairman The Chairman: Once again you have conferred upon me a great honour. Once again I thank you for it, though I realize that with that honour go an opportunity and responsibility which I can only very inadequately fulfil; for the Chairman of these Conventions, if he is to be such in more than name, should focus the thought and feeling, the collective aspiration and will of the Society as a whole, and should reflect them back so as to aid them to come to clearer self-consciousness and expression in the minds of all our members. It is not an easy thing to do; yet it is something that needs doing, and, whether adequately or not, it is something that I must attempt. I am quite sure that the first feeling we had as we assembled, that which had risen to the surface of our minds and hearts, was gladness and gratitude; gladness that we were here, and a deep-springing, overflowing gratitude for all that we meet here, for our fellows and for all that the Society means. But deeper than that, and stronger than that, is something in which personal feeling and all thought of self are largely lost,—the resolution to be true to the responsi¬ bilities that are ours, to fulfil the trust that our predecessors have handed on to us, the trust that the Masters themselves have reposed in us. I do not think that I shall run any risk of being assumed to have forgotten, or to be violating, the free character of the Society, if I ask permission to say what I have to say from a point of view, both of the Society and*of our work, which well may not be shared by some of you here v I 52 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY to.da y -wh,ch certainly no member of the Society is under any obligation to take or to share. 11 there be those who are not in agreement with me, I shall beg them to remember that I am only exercising the privilege, which is accorded to all members by our Constitution, of asking a tolerant hearing for views that are honestly held. nf I / h ‘ h ' S be . un< ?f rs *°° d ' 1 want to take my stand u P° n thc statement, made by the founders of the Society, that it was initiated by the Masters of Wisdom, by that great living Brother- W Striven t men 5 erfec i \ the EIder Br0thers of our race ’ who, throughout all the ages, " 0 f Uard and Jr u,de the ev °lution of mankind, and from whom have come all the twVrr rel ’ gl0ns -. The founders of the Society were explicit in their statements that their action m creating it was under directions that had been received from those Elder Brothers o ours, and that therefore, through the pursuit of its stated objects, the Society may fulfil In theT SeS ° f , Ma , SterS ; a " d £ erve th em as an instrument in guiding the evolution of mankind. the mislten n ofthe P s r t f The ° S ° phy : Madame Blavatsky deals with the meaning and e mission of the Society from this point of view, and sets forth what it was hoped that it t ri? n r p 1: • 1 is , pointed out that from the great L ° dg * * Ma ^ of • r eaC ^ Century ’ SOme new ° utgiving of f° ree ’ an outpouring of spirituality f mysticism, a new impulse to the spiritual progress of humanity. Madame Blavatskv savs ha ’/7^- C f re l ° d j S °’ We Can traCe these movements back, century by century through Ill menf ed a , y: ^ ^ ° Ur S ° C ' ety iS but 3 part ° f that great - age ' old Theosophical Move- 22. the S T eqaence ' representing the cyclic outgiving for the closing quarter of the neteenth century. In the past, no one of these movements has been able to continue true to its purpose, so as to bridge the gap between one outgiving and the next; but such continuance s pcssrble and whether or no our Society is to achieve it, rests with us. That is o ur 0 pp 0r tumty, and our responsibility: to keep alive in the world, until the new outgiving in 1975 an m trument the Masters formed for aiding the upward progress of the human race As I have ori d '°Tf mbe t r ° f he !f y ,S UndCT the least obligation to accept this view of the Society’s ongin and function; nor under the least obligation to believe in the existence of MasterT Yet “It* beIle , ve - and have to believe in them; and it is from this point of vie Jfn to day ol our work ' reSP ° nSibiHty that rests U P°" if we hold it, that I want to spkk impartial hearing the anneal nf ;+ if ,, tn a ta Se ’ lf cou d be & lven an honest, and souls that III td/fS £ and^ Wts and minds into the thought of the world much mi^ht h * the eaven of truth » thus introduced the conditions then wuththose that erist to beaCC ° mp, ' sbed - As we look back, and contrast accomplished by The Theosophical Society * ^ 566 ^ ^ accom P lished > and Htt 1 .iST* this ; l or otherwise * may we " — d ab - d for our has had such far-reaS annual "Z T " S Sma " a ha " as this ’ t0 claim ‘hat it be understood, it m“st be r“h Z ^ tha UP °" ^ WOrld ’ That is our claim; but, to The Theosophical Society we are not cn ^ "f, S3y 11 ,? S been done fhrough Theosophy and 2 srsMs. szssr T. S. ACTIVITIES 53 Think of a great factory whose machinery is controlled by electric power. The power house is not in the factory. It may be hundreds of miles away; beside the coal mines, or at some waterfall, where nature’s energies are so transformed as to be serviceable to man. Yet all that controls the machinery in the factory, all that makes possible its great production, is the electric power that is led into it, from the distant power house, along two wires that terminate in a small junction box. From that box other wires, within the factory, lead to the switch¬ boards, and thence to the separate machines. If the junction box were not there, or if the outside wires from the power house did not reach to it, not a wheel would turn, or, if turning, could be stopped. That junction box is a symbol of the place and function of The Theosophical Society in the spiritual thought of the world. We are very small, very insignificant; yet we serve as a terminal, as a junction box within the world, into which the Lodge force and trans¬ forming life, its ideals and will and guidance, can flow, and through which it works its work. The great thing that differentiates our age from those that are past, is that, because of the continuing existence of The Theosophical Society, there is in the thought of the world to-day, such a terminal of spiritual consciousness,—of conscious recognition of the existence of the Lodge of Masters, of the existence of the spiritual world, of the existence of a goal toward which mankind is moving,—the consciousness of the inner life of discipleship, and the possi¬ bility of entering it consciously and fully. At no corresponding time, in the cycles of past centuries, has there been such a terminal of consciousness. Our own movement has been carried further than were any of the past. Fifty-three years have passed since the Society was founded. We have reached and left behind the half-way mark in the race that we were set to run; and we can, as I said, look back and see stupendous changes in that more than half a century. Many of them are reflected, in the closing pages of the Key, and elsewhere in Madame Blavatsky’s writings, as the hopes which the founders of the Society had for the result of its work, when the Key was written, nearly forty years ago. It was hoped that if the Movement could continue, as it so far has continued, true to its original purpose into the present century, the fetters of dogmatism, of misunderstood creeds, of class and racial prejudices—fetters of many different kinds, binding and confining the freedom of thought and of the spirit—might fall away; that science might push its way deeper into the finer forces of nature; that theology might become more free and true. As we look back we see very remarkable progress in directions in which The Theosophical Society has consciously led the way. On all sides, barriers have fallen; limitations have been swept aside; and science is to-day dealing with forces of which it knew nothing fifty years ago. Let us take one science as an example,—physics. Its fundamental concepts of matter and mass have been wholly changed since the opening of the twentieth century; and matter has been largely dissolved and resolved into energy. The discovery of the Roentgen and X-rays is little more than thirty years old. The discovery of radium and the radio-active substances followed them, pointing the way to the intra-atomic forces, and showing that the atom itself could no longer be regarded as a fixed, indivisible entity, but that it must be considered—more as Theosophy said it should be considered—as a miniature solar system: a central nucleus around which, like planets, electric particles revolved, mirroring in little what the heavens mirror in great. Physics has pushed its way behind matter—or behind what it had thought of as matter—to centres of electric energy, and to forces, finer, subtiler, and far more potent than those it had known before. Its progress has all been in the directions indicated by Theosophy. Similar changes have taken place in the other sciences. In modem chemistry, ancient alchemy, which a generation ago was held up to scorn as the very quintessence of superstitious ignorance, has now been rehabilitated. It had to be; for with the discovery of radium we saw the transmutation of the elements taking place before our eyes. In astronomy, Newton’s laws are being questioned—as approximations, valid only within a limited range. Archaeology and anthropology are steadily pushing the age of man back, further and further, toward figures commensurate with those for which Madame Blavatsky contended. Turning from science to theology the changes are no less marked. The religions of the East are approached in a very different spirit to-day than they were fifty years ago; and in the West itself, much of the old 54 theosophical quarterly - — - **«. **. J“2 T “""-»*•*• w * another side to the picture; and this other side th h •* u UP ° n ltmany tlmes - But there is cems us vitally. ' Slde ' though “ has ^"ived far less attention, con- ^SSSSL“StTSS,* poi " ,ed ' »> «'■ «► religious thought, is capable of perversion and has mC ? ase of freedo ™ that has marked aside barriers and loose fetters ^thTt Z' 1 expenenced Persian. One cannot sweep And evil has °PPf-,ty for evil, as well as good, to arise W, „« by . great that it is a battleground,—that all that W • h cleared, only to reveal Truth is a' two-edged sword; knowledge and noweMead Ca . Pa ^' e ° f being used gainst us. to receive them; and freedom, degenerating^to Zt J. , 0n,yt0 u destr ^ » those unfitted To contrast the conditions T convinced that we are living in the midst of a resolution ® .°^ a . generatlon a S°. >s to become science and religion, political ideas and social customs habits of th 1? ,mmediate effect s upon is as radical as any that the history of a thousand vrare * o£ thought and popular philosophy, trast shows, by many and unmistakable sitms thlt , r “ ords ' More , than this, such a con- the course of this revolution has so far been largely donated bvf ** U ’ timate outcome ’ not descending from above. Transmutation of th» i 4 d forces nsin g from beneath, to be permanent and fixed, has been proved as we noteda mom che f stry had thought but a present, continuing fact. It is profoundlv ago, to be not only possible covered should be those which degrade —not rbl ^ fi . Ca ” t that the first transmutations dis- It is the same wherever we boS'tTor in bk WW ^ 8 °' d ' bUt debasing gold to ' aad - and syncopated rhythms? They arfa re su~ J “ ^ m ° dern music? our ” Our dancing? It is an imitation a reflection of nee sava ? e mualc > o£ the African drums, fashion of speech? Does it come down to us from the^^T 't XVheace comes our modem cultured? Obviously not. It is a slender of ^ r! PUnStS ' fr ° m the schoIars . from the language is being flooded by the colloquialisms and idioms^f t0 ^ ‘! hterate - 0ur En ghsh over by the educated of the speech of the upeducated-^f their" lmmiEra " ts ‘ 14 is a taking stop with what has so far been accomplished, if the freed ^ lf ltS WOrk were to to be thus left as licence, and its great ideals, given to the ° m u' Whlch 14 has ,a boured were has taken and used them, more would be lost than has h ^ ' Were to be left as the world is still at stake, still at hazard; and ^ haS been gained m the battle that has been evoked, if we fail to oush th! M ' f ° r ,f we suffer defeat which has been immediately set us, all that has so fa^b M ° Vement further tow ard the goal poured out into the Movement, may react and be ^e^L^V^ acom P hshed . a| l that has been who have entrusted it to us. d agamst lt_ and against the great Lodge Let us turn once again to the closing chanter nf v t* to make clear the factors that must determine the future^ ™* osophy ' where H - P- B. tries Theosophy is not at stake, for it is everlasting Truth and e Society * She P oi nts out that sense, is the Theosophical Movement at stake-for it too , exis4s e4eraaIly ‘ Neither, in one great Lodge of Masters. But it is made very dear h^t TlTe rT ' ^ * the hands of the of the Movement in this century—is at stake Theosophical Society—the fate of its founders. This is at st^e; S32KI££ the - d sacriS enfrely, upon the degree of selflessness, eamestn^ d/vori 6 ' St ° ensue " da Pends, almost the knowledge and the wisdom” of those who Tme .tf/^ ' aSt ' but not Ieas ‘- open destiny of the Society will be placed when the founders are dead ^W ^ T* Wh ° Se hands the * w e are those in whose hands T. S. ACTIVITIES 55 that destiny now rests. We are those who are thus trusted. It is upon us, upon our selfless¬ ness, earnestness and devotion, and last but by no means least, upon our knowledge and wisdom and ability to understand and meet the need, that success or failure, victory or calami¬ tous defeat, must rest and turn. We assemble here to-day therefore, as I said in the beginning, so profoundly sensible of the responsibilities that are ours, and of the magnitude of the issues that are involved, that all personal feeling, all thought of self, are lost in the resolution to be true to the trust imposed in us. We approach our work as the soldier advances to battle; glad and grateful that his opportunity has come, but hearing already the sound of the guns and knowing that the supreme test of his manhood is now at hand. So must we advance to the test of our souls,—of our selflessness and devotion, of our wisdom and understanding. We ask ourselves what is the crucial need. How are we to meet the perversions of the truth, the resurgence from beneath, against which we must contend? We must meet them by their opposites; by truth that is not perverted, by a life and a power that are drawn from above. Let us think again. Why is this battle ours? It is because we have been entrusted with the power to win it. To us has been given that which the world needs. What is it that we have been given? what differentiates our consciousness, our philosophy, our Movement from all else in the world to-day? It is, I think, two things. First, knowledge of the Lodge of Masters as a living Brotherhood, as a living organism and fact in Being. Throughout the whole human race, in each religion, there is belief in some Master. They may not give him that name; but whether it be Buddha or Christ or Krishna, whether we look to India or Pales¬ tine, Egypt or China or the vanished Aztecs, we find some Master is recognized as the source of their religion, as their guide to the realities of the spiritual life. The recognition of a Master, and the possibility of divine inspiration, is not, therefore, our special contribution to the world. But the recognition of the Lodge of Masters as the Lodge, the recognition that all the great religions of the world have been drawn from the same source and reflect the same truths, the recognition that all the great spiritual teachers of mankind are brothers and belong to one great Brotherhood, one living organism, the clear recognition of the hierarchical principle as a fact in life, in nature, in the essence of Being itself,—that, I think, is the peculiar prerogative of The Theosophical Society and of students of Theosophy. Yet, like every truth that Theosophy has brought or fostered, it has been, and is being, perverted to ends the opposite of its own. It has been re-echoed as a lie by innumerable self-deluded psychics or conscious charlatans. Tame and pocket “Adepts”, future “Avatars”, are led on exhibition round the country; “esoteric teaching” is offered at a price; and the names of Masters, like the name of Theosophy itself, have been dragged through the dust. There is no escaping this. It is part of the condition of the battle. You have to “. . . bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools”. But the value of gold is not lessened because some—seeking short cuts to wealth—have purchased worthless mining stocks. With the recognition of the Lodge as the Lodge, and the consequent clear perception that mankind has been, and ever is being, guided in its evolution by wisdom that descends to it from above—not the haphazard invention of something acting from beneath—with this comes the recognition of the other half of the evolutionary process; the half which science has ignored. We see that the ascent from matter has been concomitant with a descent from spirit. We perceive them to be but the two halves of one whole; and this perception is the second thing which differentiates our thought from the thought of the world about us. Science has presented clearly the evolutionary ascent of animal life. It has exhibited the long sequences of forms, leading from the single cell through organisms more and more complex and differentiated, more and more responsive to wider ranges of environment, more and more capable of spontaneous action and of conduct determined by inner purpose rather than by outer necessity. It points to the physical organism of man as the highest term yet attained 56 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY in any of those ramifying sequences,—highest in the sense that it permits the functioning, through it as a vehicle, of what is assumed to be the broadest and highest type of consciousness. Many other organisms have greater physical strength, many are longer lived, many have keener senses, many seem better adapted to their environment; but no other, known to science, gives evidence of incarnating so high a spirit, of being capable of expressing and sustaining equal spiritual values and purposes. Yet of this descent and progressive incarnation of the spirit, science says nothing. About six months ago, Sir Arthur Keith, one of the foremost of the English biologists who still adhere to the Darwinian theory in its original form, likened the evolution of man, through the sequence of lower animal forms, to the evolution of the automobile. Let us consider his simile, and think of the development of the automobile, picturing the series of successive models, from the earliest and crudest to the most highly perfected of to-day, as placed in a long row before us. We are puzzled to know just where to begin. What was the earliest and crudest? Behind the automobile, as we call it, was the steam engine, and the bicycle; the carriage drawn by horses, the ox cart, the wheelbarrow, the sled; the pole, one end of which is carried, one dragged along the ground. Man power, animal power, steam, oil, gasoline, electricity, mag¬ netism. How many different sciences and arts had to be developed to make possible the automobile as it is to-day! Physics and chemistry and metallurgy, steel and copper and brass, the making of glass and of cloth, the growing and treatment of rubber. And all have been combined and introduced into that sequence of more and more efficient and smooth running vehicles, in pursuance of a single purpose—the purpose of man to transport himself and his possessions from one place to another. We look at that sequence of vehicles. Science asks us to see how each form developed out of that which preceded it. In one sense we see that this is so; that the automobile arose from the wheelbarrow. But in another sense it is not so at all. The automobile arose through the development of that one unswerving purpose which runs throughout the whole sequence, which devised the wheelbarrow and every succeeding form, realizing its end only imperfectly in each, but learning from each how to realize it better. The actual evolutionary force has not been something in the vehicle, but in the will of man. The evolution has been the evolu¬ tion of a purpose, coming to more and more complete fulfilment as it came to clearer self- consciousness of the betterments that were possible, and reached out to embody them. The history of the automobile is the history of the progressive incarnation of a purpose; and though that purpose lives and is manifest in the wheelbarrow and the ox cart and the car of to-day it is no one of these, nor all of them together. It is a thing of the spirit, not of matter It is so with the evolution of mankind. Man is not his body. His body is the vehicle he has devised and uses. His history is the history of the progressive incarnation of his spirit, descending from above into the world of matter, striving toward that goal which we have been told is the object of all evolution-the attainment of full and true self-consciousness. He has built himself vesture after vesture, drawing matter up and animating it in higher and higher organisms through which he can express himself more fully, into which he can incarnate more completely. But never is he wholly incarnated. He always transcends himself; and that which is above stnves to descend, to draw up that which is below. The descent of spint with the ascent of matter; these two need to be seen as a single whole. But the world does not so see them, and science gives no thought to spirit or to the purpose of the evolution that it studies. Because these are ignored by science, popular thought ignores them also, and does more—denies them. Many scientists may also deny them, but science itself does not. It only says it is not competent to deal with them. Science fishes for truth with a net adapted to certain kinds of truth, but which lets other kinds pass through it. It has set itself to trace the sequence of forms, but not to pronounce on the spirit which created them. But because of this, the man in the street has said: There is no spirit, no cause- the sequence is complete without them; life and consciousness are but a ferment in matter*and have arisen from beneath So he sees his most fundamental purposes, his deepest identities, his highest values, as products of the slime. In that view religion becomes to him no more than the survival of primitive superstition and ignorance, and his sophistication rejects all T. S. ACTIVITIES 57 that gives meaning and value to life, turning back to identify himself with the mere animal in him, which is all that he recognizes as real. The great need of the world to-day is to realize that the true life of man is not the life of the body, but the life of the spirit; that this spirit descends from above, and that only as he reaches up to what is above, can he lay permanent hold upon it. The theosophical view of evolution, could men's minds be brought to accept its truth, would go far to meet that need. In our hands has been placed the antidote for the poison of the age. There is no limiting the power of consciousness or the effect of thought. A man’s philosophy, his view of truth, the ideals he has set himself, enter into all he does. It is true that all he does reacts upon his philosophy; the action is not all one way. But what a man holds to be true is that which, consciously or unconsciously, he will act out. If his philosophy be false, so will be his actions. The world has been misled by science, even as it has been misled by its own desires. It needs the gift of truth that has been given us; and we must give it. It has been said that Theosophy is intellectually an attitude, practically a method, ethically a spirit, and religiously a life. It might not be a far-fetched supposition, recognizing as we do that the life is the goal, to think that the hundred years span, which is our special concern, might properly be divided into four quarters, each stressing one of those fourfold divisions of Theosophy. There would be, first, the imparting of intellectual knowledge and the creation of an intellectual attitude. Next would come the development of a practical method for apprehending and assimilating that knowledge; and in the third twenty-five years—the cycle we are now entering—there should be the growth and rule of an ethical spirit. Surely we can see that, if the truth that life comes from above were really apprehended and assimilated, it would yield an ethical result. It would make us live our lives no longer under the dominance of what rises from beneath, no longer with the idea that we are separate beings, to find our highest aims in the gratification of a separate, personal self. Instead, it would make us live our lives as ambassadors of the Most High, as representatives of something infinitely greater than ourselves. Nothing has value save as it represents something greater than itself. The king rules by divine right, if he rule at all, if he be in fact a king. The soldier obeys his captain, represents his captain; and the captain his colonel; and the colonel his general. The commander-in-chief represents the will of the nation. The servant has the dignity of his service, is clothed with the dignity of that which he serves. Everything that is, has dignity and worth only because it represents something higher; and that which is greatest is worthless unless it represents something greater still. Surely that recognition must bring an ethical spirit, the spirit which the world needs, and which alone can make all that the Society has so far accomplished, all that the Masters have poured out upon it, all the sacrifices of our predecessors, come to a fruition that shall be good and not evil. We are told that Theosophy was given to the world to become the foundation of the future religions of humanity. A living religion can be founded only on a living spirit. Looking out upon the churches of to-day, we see to what a great extent their old foundations have been swept away. They fell from the living spirit to the dead letter of their creeds and dogmas; and when these crumbled and had to be discarded, it seemed that there was very little left. It was the old story of throwing out the baby with the bath water. But though the new foundations are not yet recognized, we, who believe in Masters, know that they are being laid. More, we know that stones, which must enter into them, have been placed in our own hands. Such a stone is our belief in Masters, the knowledge that we have been given of the existence of the Lodge. Before the races of men were as closely knit together as they are now, before we saw the whole universe as one, and recognized that the chemistry of the stars was not other than the chemistry of our own earth, a religion could be given as the religion of a single tribe, as the teaching of a single Master to his “chosen” people. Drawn though it in fact was from the great Lodge, from the great common store-house of spiritual truth, it could still bear the appearance of being unique; and in the earlier days of greater isolation, that appearance might be an aid, rather than a barrier to its acceptance. But to the modem mind, truth, if it be truth, must be universal; and nothing that seems unique, that stands out in contradiction 58 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY to all else we know, can be easily accepted, either in itself or in witness to something beyond itself, until that contradiction is removed. Therefore it is that now and in the future, the most convincing evidence of the truth of any religion cannot be the uniqueness of its founder’s life and teaching, but the fact that they typify and manifest something that is universal and eternal, something which, in transcending, nevertheless continues and supplements our own deepest experience. The knowledge of the spiritual hierarchy as inherent in the nature of Being, the knowledge of the Lodge as the Lodge, and the knowledge that all religions are but reflections, however partial or distorted, of the same proven laws of spiritual life and con¬ sciousness,—such knowledge must be a part of the broader foundations on which all future religions shall rest. The Theosophical Society has, then, gifts to give and a mission to fulfil. To us has been given that which the world needs; and the responsibility is ours for that which has been entrust¬ ed to us. We cannot force it on the world, against the world’s will; nor are we asked to do so. But we are asked to keep it as we have received it, living and potent, against the time when the world shall seek it. We are asked to keep the terminal of living truth alive within our own consciousness, and so within the consciousness of the world, that the Lodge force may continue to enter and work therein. But for truth to live, in any consciousness, it must be lived there; and it is in this that our responsibility lies, and the test of our fidelity. If we cannot if we do not, make our own lives an expression of the spirit of Theosophy, if we cannot seek and find our highest good in its service, acting as the agents, however humble, of the great Hierarchy of Spiritual Being,—if we cannot so view and live our own lives, how can we expect that the world will be convinced of truth which we ourselves reject? The battle-ground remains in us, though our mission lies in the world. It was then requested that the Chairman be empowered to appoint the usual Committees on Nominations, on Resolutions, and on Letters of Greeting. This having been voted the Report of the Executive Committee was called for, Mr. Johnston as Chairman being asked to speak first. Report of the Executive Committee Cha J rman ’ The duty of the Executive Committee is to represent the hole Society and to form the principle of continuity; therefore a part at least of the Executive Committee, and the greater part, is always in being. It overlaps from Convention to Conven- lon and is continuous in life. That function imposes upon the Executive Committee a corre¬ sponding responsibility to look back and to look forward, and, so far as lies in its power, to insure the mntmuity of.direction and of movement in the Society, as representative of the Society’s taken l i, u , Io ° k forward ’ we shaU record - of “urse, first such activities as have taken place which are referred to the Executive Committee. Looking back (I am expressing for the moment my own individual view), one thing is very “‘I" f* laS year ' and that " " COndHion ° f Stra “’ S ‘™ ^ere must be n The Theosophical Society, because, as our Chairman has just reminded us, our function is to must be firm B f tT *** re%i ° nS ° f humanity ’ That stone must be solid and must be firm But there is a quality in this strain which has been conspicuous and which is not right, and that is its inequitable distribution. I remember a story about some people carrying a burden. One said to the other “ This is tremendously heavy, I had no realization how heavy it was!” The other said "Oh do v carry? I just lean on.” I think that that is something which eveiy oneoucould Lttably f the latS tb Un "? the IaSt SiX m ° nthS ' have bee " carrying 7 r have we beening on" f ' then we kno 7 at any rate . ‘hat there has been inequitable strain. I did not say enced,-SequHaWe.^ b “ m ° re Strain than tha -perf- Let us see what can be done about it First dihVpntlv tn trv T. S. ACTIVITIES 59 time, take up, not a magazine, \£TU ^ ^ find a privilege a nd ,oy in streng many of us know our history as a Socie y * telling statements as regards our relatlon • + ■) TVint is a second direction in things that have to be done. E ry y More j actically: there are all k “ ds ° n f" g halves for meetings. They waUr realizes that these chairs, by Sa^sl Nobody has to move them -bout or arrange thlt'they be"’^TTXhapp®. spont^X I‘ J a Je - - do ^ ^me and get something all the tune! that B memb er says, I EOO T h aUs what Is wrong, and it has to be put n*fc ■££ ™ ought to be in line. Juy do not know how to put chairs in ^ 1 * Opposing the committee were to Hoi about counting to see? Would you know how to put the go off to the Antarctic regions wi romo i ex matter than the order of the chairs, w ^v.oirc in nlace? How about some more comp weU w hat are you going to do. Ch t+-c difficult complex, something ought to be don . Have you the knowledge, the . / v _ n .ov Well, I see what the trouble is, d practised medita- Vetlell. have you meditated? tion’ Meditation consists in bringing . { meditate, know how to act. sothat you will know real vahi*- £T"E° off” maturely, merely bemuse counsel-something that we should habituaUy ^ u this the way to do it. you see something that might be> done. A P P q£ the habit o{ leanmg on instead of and then set about it. But for heaven s sa ,g The real way t0 heighten the potential, carrying! That is what makes the mequi the theosophical life intensely, tollcrease the voltage, the whole Pressure oftece.^ ^ ^ ^ ^ and then until the from the momentjou wake m t^ e morn, ^ ^ & positive fidd o{ force instead o a ra er ZTsen a se a o" burden. personally-I am not speaking officially for the it then? Did you say,—the flowers splendid banner forward throug force more will, more energy. ,£„,k. must si SO sssry.no. ton on .mi«P Thntopon. ™., T o “Si“ ~ sibility is real, when you recog^ ^ ^ ^ has to be recogmz _ Executive Com- 6o THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY Committee on Nominations Committee on Resolutions Mr. J. F. B. Mitchell, Chairman Mr. E. T. Hargrove, Chairman Miss Mary Kent Wallace Miss Anne Evans Mr. George M. W. Kobb <5 Dr. R. E. Torrey Committee on Letters of Greeting Dr. Archibald Keightley, Chairman Dr. C. C. Clark Mrs. John W, Regan It was then asked if other members of the Executive Committee would add to the report already made by its Chairman. Mr. Hargrove: I am exceedingly glad that the Chairman of the Executive Committee said what he did say. Perhaps the same idea could also be expressed in this way: one man says, I am a member of The Theosophical Society; another says, I belong to The Theosophical Society. In the Army, if I am not mistaken, no one would say, I am a member of such or such a regiment, but always, I belong to such a regiment. Now if we belong, we belong — which means that we feel as one of a family feels,—that we are responsible, and that every¬ thing that concerns the regiment, concerns us. It has been well said in this connection that the soldier learns that by putting the interests of his regiment ever before his own interests— in that sense, by identifying himself with a greater self he obtains a greater freedom, not a less. By shedding his littleness, he acquires bigness. There are those among you who are in the habit of referring to some of us as the Ancients, and it is customary for the more talkative of these “Ancients” to address you at the Conven¬ tion. We must do so with mixed feelings, I think; with a feeling of intense pleasure and of joy, a feeling of great responsibility and privilege, but also with a feeling—increasing as the years pass—almost of desperation,—desperate with desire to give whatever we have to give, to pass on to those who have not been quite so long in the Movement, whatever of experience we may have garnered; desperate to say the right thing, to say the thing that will help the Movement itself, and yet realizing that year after year and year after year, we have done our best, and then asking ourselves sometimes with what result. You would not be so unkind as to suppose that this implies any feeling of superiority on the part of these so-called Ancients. I assure you that that is not the feeling. But there is a great longing, and even a remnant of hope, that some of you may make better use of our experience than we, alas, have been able to make of it. It was my duty, a few days ago, to look over a number of old papers and records of the Society, and I realized then, as perhaps I had never realized before, the extraordinary progress that the Movement has made in some vital ways. It has been raised many planes since its inauguration in 1875. I said “the Movement”, but I mean the attitude of members of the Society, the receptivity of members of the Society. They have come to appreciate Theosophy in its spiritual significance as they did not do years ago. Its spiritual significance was clearly taught from the very beginning, but no one understood it, or hardly anyone. While com¬ parisons are odious, I cannot resist repeating what was in my own mind when I thought of the Theosophical Quarterly and compared that magazine with what I occasionally see of other magazines quite falsely supposed to be representative of Theosophy. If any proof were needed as to which is the representative of Masters, a glance at those magazines would supply the proof. Take one instance,—the realization by our members that if they would know and serve the Masters, they must know themselves. “Man know thyself” from the very beginning of time has been the teaching of Masters; “Man know thyself” in thy nether regions and in thy higher regions. If you look at a Quarterly, you will find pages of in¬ struction under these two heads,—” Letters to Students ”, “ Letters to Friends”, “Fragments”, and so on. Then look in those other magazines for the same light, and if you can find it you are welcome to it! Of course, going back to those old records of the Society, remembering again the old troubles T. S. ACTIVITIES 61 ■ f u p B and her “phenomena", made me wonder §§ili mmm » tl *,b„ M b.v. tLTEiS were vitally interested m beUef in im mortality in companson w,th, 6 2 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY very early days, of the phenomena, and so forth, as a preliminary to restating the purpose of it all. I found in a very old issue of The Theosophist (1885), in an article on spiritual progress, the statement that the only mission of the Society is to rekindle the torch of Truth, so long extinguished for all but the very few, and to keep that Truth alive by the formation of a frater¬ nal union, the only soil in which the good seed can grow.—As soon as the Society was founded, a great call went out to mankind, and goes out to-day to all who will listen: “Turn you to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope!" How many heard that call? How many responded, and how many respond to-day? There is no need to remain prisoners of hope. You can burst the gates open if you will, because the Masters have burst them open for us, and nothing remains but the illusion that those gates are closed. There is no one here for whom those gates have not been opened, and I repeat that there is nothing but the illusion that they are closed that keeps you from passing through. And yet that truth has been announced at Convention after Convention, since Conventions were held. How many have believed it? How many have risen in their own souls and said: If that be so, I pass through. There is a saying in one of the old books: When even the body is an illusion, how can we speak of necessity—the Vedas speak of necessity only for the guidance of the ignorant. Part of our trouble is that we are hypnotized by the idea of necessity,—a misunderstanding of Karma. We believe that we are bound and held by the chain of our sins, or the chain of our limitations, and therefore that this, that or the other thing is an insuperable barrier for us. Yet even the body is an illusion; and the truth of the matter is that all things are an illusion except Masters and chdlaship. Therefore, if you seek reality, it is only with those two things that you Van deal. H. P. B. said it; Judge said it; everybody has said it. Yet what do we do? Limp along, and limp along, and groan about our burdens, and "lean on ", as Mr. Johnston said; and what they are crying out for us to do is to rise from the illusion of our barriers—or, if you choose, quietly, serenely to accept them as an illusion, which is all you need to do; then in the flash of an eye, seeing that truth, to act on it. I am greatly tempted to refer, no matter how briefly, before closing, to a subject that has already been touched upon and that is the subject of science. There is considerable danger that we shall be hypnotized in part by science and all this talk about science. I think Pro¬ fessor Mitchell was exceedingly charitable to science. What I mean is that we could, for instance, discuss the Roman Catholic Church as represented chiefly by its saints, who, though not perfect, certainly interpreted their religion as well as it can be interpreted. If we think of science, and choose to think of the very best representatives of science, we of course know that they recognize the limitations of science, and that they say, one and all: "We do not pretend to know anything about the soul and similar things—that is not our province—we confine ourselves to the facts that we observe, and we leave it to others to deal with whatever else there may be in the universe." If, however, you wish to obtain a true picture of the Roman Catholic Church, you must take into account not only saints, but others who are quite ordinary people; and you must consider their superstitions. In the same way, when it comes to science, you must think about those who have their superstitions. What are the facts? If you take the universities and colleges in the United States at the present time, most of those who are supposed to teach science are rank materialists in every sense of the word—avowedly so— and are destructive of the morality and spiritual life of American youth. I am sure that Professor Mitchell will agree with me in this. He happened to be speaking of the good side of science,-^nd, as a general rule, it is the duty of students of Theosophy to seek the best in other people's views. Yet,-not always. It is true, for example, that, in one sense, science has made amazing progress. It speaks no longer of "matter"; it speaks instead of "energy " Is that really such amazing progress? Oh, it is a step; but so long as consciousness, as aspira¬ tion, as love are looked upon as the products either of matter or of energy, I confess it does not seem to mo to matter in the slightest degree whether scientists label the source as energy or matter. They have changed their terms to that extent, but their philosophy is exactly the 1 nen let me ask you this: what good has all this progress done to them or to anybody else m terms of human happiness, of human well being? I am not including spiritual happiness, T. S. ACTIVITIES 63 drives you wild. It automobile at the rat C ontribu- you any happier to be able to tw ** $ , used t0 clinE to modem P u " d ^ veredthat has probably torn your ne *\ ^ t has gone . because it has recen ^ vstem 0 f plumbing— failure on the P a in then another and another, an fi Y dsomet hing wrong. rsKfKSi.-**--— has tremendously advanced ^ ^ that the only I As for the explanation of thmgs, al all . Take, for example, aWtl^^ ^t2^%u^Tdo d s°" of “ fiftem m^^do something mthe imyjf of 6 them 1 knows. The get results from Jhand, is probably just as narrow in h,s way, laziness. Another is staleness. £ P becomes stale if he keeps aliveJW * t o but of a misused membership. No ^ ^ gQ home and sleep. excuses rut and trudge along ant t hink they are doing something mane • that I used another meeting, they perhaps thmk they ^ and I have no tte hope tha ; ^ itself, saying, “Oh well. I am gett g ^ chelas h ip was withm reach be “*■" ■ 6 4 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY easier, is a very serious illusion, for this reason: suppose you desire to become a musician in this life, but decide, No, I have not the time—some other life. The truth is that until you sacrifice some part of every day in the agony of five finger exercises, you will never be a musician in this or any other life. You must sacrifice to-day, for the thing you want to-morrow, or you will not get it to-morrow. Therefore, there is only one way open for anybody, and that is to begin, to begin now, to begin here as if it meant something. There is even a deeper truth involved: children depend upon hope, and children only. Hope is needed by those who are still suffering from the dream of time, but when you touch the fringes of an immortal consciousness, the need for hope disappears. There is something else, too: no man who calls himself a soldier, so far as I have ever read of soldiers, would say that it is neces¬ sary to have hope in order to fight; because it is only when hope has fled that the real fight begins. This does not mean that to go on fighting because you are afraid to stop, is going to win the fight. It means that determination is stronger than hope; it means that the man who really fights gives all of himself in his last blow,—and whether there be much to give or little, has nothing to do with it. He must give all of himself, because he can do no less, seeing that he gives the whole content of his heart. And that is what is needed in The Theosophical Society,—unless we would just live to ourselves and for ourselves, and remain everlastingly wrapped up in self; the small and contemptible concerns of self—first one thing and then another thing, with a total inability to lose oneself in the concerns of the regiment, in the honour of the regiment. Why should it be unreasonable to ask of students of Theosophy that which is expected every day from men who merely serve their country in its armed forces? They give that sort of self-forgetfulness without question. They do not imagine that they are making a sacrifice. They may when they are very young, and have not yet really done it • but when they have done it, they know better. They know then that they have gained’ They know that they are bigger; that they are worth more as men. As I say, it is done every day without thought; and now,—for us. It was moved, seconded and carried that the Report of the Executive Committee be accepted with the thanks of the Convention. The Report of the Secretary T. S. was then called for. Report of the Secretary T. S. for the Year Ending April 2 7 th, 1928. Whenever we return to a home we love, there is one question we can hardly wait to ask - Is everything all right? So let me say first, that everything is well with the Society and its Branches. Losses have come: tned and true members have fulfilled their time and passed on- accessions have come: new members have entered, little dreaming of the marvellous oppor- IiW thfH f H p n ' “L' ,tant a ' WayS ’ the f ° rm of the Society’s attack has changed since the days of H. P. B. and her ready sledge-hammer; since the days of Mr. Judge when every principle it promulgated had to be defended under rapid fire. The new cycle presents a “™' nt ™ r problem,—how each of us shall work Theosophy into his bones and sinews, until. becomes inseparable from him, the centre of his life; until he defends it, instinctively y seeking to represent its spirit and attitude in every situation and position which daily life brings to him. We have cause for gratitude in the fact that an increasing number of our embers strive to incarnate the essential principles of Theosophy, quite unaffected by the noisy proclamation of its psychic counterfeits. The new era: H. P. B. was preparing for it memhenf" n s “ tte f, ed broadcast and the Society was being inundated with new the^iarve t *7 u° 7 that she dedicated her Voice of the Silence, knowing that if ' closely-knit band garnered and camed over ’"to the future, it would be done by a small, Branch Activities wJ k hC The ZZnT^T e L the BranCh rePOrtS ' iS the emphasis p,aced “P°" formative ork. The action of the Branches seems analogous to that which our Convention Chairman T. s. ACTIVITIES 65 ;d t0 us as individuals, in the April • trained from them, and tor tms re* ' edly, the lasting place he has won. The Theosophical Quarterly ^ ■ enmptimes expressed doubt whether many It was with a quizzical smile that Mr. perhaps he was contrasting some of us Of our members read the magazine from cover to cow . with {ar less help in years with beginners in the East who are said to ha ® ^ For tunately, this doubt did not than may be found in any single mrmbero C ) ible ser vice to those who seek the lead hint to relax his effort to make it of . h . 7 Ws fellows who, lavishly expending time and • •+ al life and the same desire still amma delighted to serve, and as the best of 3KSS** <» *» - «. "S—* ■* >• memorials to him. To commemorate th P to study its material, topically, a"complete Index that will be of use to those wh^ supp , yingi as far as written words ever Those ioo numbers contain a rich fi rst -hand experience as have, from time imm ^San un 3 a ^mber of inquiri “ t ^ start co "“’ attracted to it by finding our magazine in ^ ahvays g i ad to have that question asked, ondence by asking how to become mem • a member 0 f the Executive Committee who and we always recommend case , that the first step, a vital one « to get to 66 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY The Book Department The Book Department has been busy, as usual, with the sale of “Standard Books”, both to members and to inquirers; even the Public Libraries are beginning to ask for our books. Not only standard books on Theosophy, but all those reviewed in the Quarterly, the Depart¬ ment is glad to send, postpaid, at the published price. Orders are not accepted for books on Theosophy that are misleading, nor does the Department sanction the sale of its publications by organizations merely calling themselves theosophical, mystical, or occult. In consequence, our books are sometimes reported as no longer on sale, but the fact is that any individual purchaser, whatever his connections, can readily secure them from us. Acknowledgments All of us recognize that we owe much to those who write for the Quarterly, and even more to those who edit it. Acting as spokesman for the whole Society, I should like to thank them; also the members who do the proof-reading, sometimes at breakneck speed. The Secretary’s office has a little work to do in so many different directions, that the need for extra help may arise suddenly; and there are various New York members always ready, with steam up, to respond to requests for volunteers to wrap books, mail copies of the Quarterly, or to attach postage stamps. The Assistant Treasurer does a nice piece of work, every quarter, in arrang¬ ing the magazine envelopes to suit the post office; and the Assistant Secretary, who would like to edit out any mention of her helpfulness, is ready for whatever comes. It is she who takes notes of all the New York Branch meetings; another member makes an abstract from them, and still another manifolds the number of copies needed for the foreign Branches,— all working with delight that others thus may share the addresses they have enjoyed. The member who has been so very generous in past years, has again paid the salary of a stenog¬ rapher, an outsider, and the only paid worker. Yet, in another sense, your Secretary is paid, in fact shockingly over-paid, as every least effort is rewarded in so many ways. You, your¬ selves, are constantly writing and voting thanks, for work which it is both an honour and a pleasure to be permitted to do. Then there is great reward—pleasure plus training—in the opportunity to take your questions, and the problems that arise, to the older members of the Society whose judgment and experience are imparted in a way that is in itself a delight. It is because of their wise guidance that difficulties are foreseen and avoided, and that adjustments are made which give us the privilege of contributing—without jar or friction to mar the sin¬ cerity of our offering—whatever we may, to the Masters whose will sustains the Movement and blesses all who even try to serve it. Respectfully submitted, Isabel E. Perkins, Secretary , T. S. The Chairman: I think it would be very hard to find any single motion which would be welcomed more enthusiastically by all the members of the Society than the motion that the Secretary's Report be accepted with the very grateful thanks of all the members of the Society and its officers. Mr. J. F. B. Mitchell: The Chairman has taken an unfair advantage of his being Chair¬ man, because that motion was very much on the hearts of many members. After being duly seconded, the motion was passed unanimously, and the Report of the Treas¬ urer T. S. was called for, Mr. Johnston taking the Chair. Report of the Treasurer, T. S. Mr. H. B. Mitchell: The report of the Treasurer should always begin with the acknowl¬ edgment that it is Miss Youngs who carries whatever burden may be attached to the Treas¬ urer’s office. She draws the receipts, keeps the books, attends to the banking, and sees to it that all goes straight. It is to her that we are indebted for the preparation of the figures which make the report I am about to present to you. T. S. ACTIVITIES 67 Comparing the record with that of last year, as I find it interesting to do, our receipts and disbursements total almost the same for each year, and the individual items, on both sides of the account, are also surprisingly close. There is an increase of somewhat over $200 in the cost of printing and mailing the Quarterly, and that is explained by the increase in the number of copies printed, to which we have just heard reference in the Secretary’s report. We started the year with a bank balance of $529 (in round numbers) and we close the year with $431; but $76 of this latter amount represents dues prepaid for the year 1929, and the Treasurer has very recently received some $300 more, not yet put on deposit at our bank, which is also on account of dues for the next year, beginning May 1st. Taking the present year alone, we have managed to spend almost $200 more than the year’s receipts. A sincere pleasure that the Treasurer enjoys, is the opportunity to see the letters from our members which accompany the payment of their dues—speaking of the help they have received from the Quarterly and from the Secretary’s office, and of the effort they are making to further the cause of Theosophy. These letters are a help and an inspiration. Our Balance Sheet reads as follows: May 1, 1927-ApRiL 28, 1928 Receipts Disbursements Current Dues. $ 705.98 Printing and mailing the Theo¬ General Contributions, and Do¬ sophical Quarterly (4 num¬ nations to the Theosophical bers) . $3195-5° Quarterly. 592.05 Stationery and supplies. 135.53 Propaganda Fund. 167940 Postage. 74.60 Subscriptions to the Theosophi¬ Rent. 150.00 cal Quarterly. 461.39 Telephone. 57.80 $3438.82 Total Disbursements. $3613-43 1929 Dues, prepaid. 76.00 Balance April 28, 1928. 43 «-° 8 Total- Receipts. $3514-82 Balance April 30, 1927. 529.69 $4044.51 $4044.51 Assets Liabilities 1929 Dues, prepaid. $ 76.00 On deposit Corn Exchange Bank, Excess of assets over liabilities. 355°8 April 28, 1928. $ 431.08 $ 431.08 Henry Bedinger Mitchell, Treasurer , The Theosophical Society. Mr. Johnston: Before asking what action it is your pleasure to take upon the report of the Treasurer, let me say that I listened with some anxiety for the final figures, as unless we had our usual* deficit it would not be satisfactory. It is reassuring to find that we have $100 less in the bank than we had at the beginning of the year! Mr. H. B. Mitchell: There is no deficit in fact, since all our bills are paid and we have a balance in the bank, although smaller than last year’s. The Treasurer is not appealing for special contributions, nor asking that any unusual fund be created, but he would remind members, in the terms used recently by Mr. Johnston, that chairs (and funds) do not arrange themselves. . , , The report of the Treasurer was accepted with thanks, after a motion duly made and seconded. Mr. H. B. Mitchell then resumed the Chair, and asked for the report of the Com¬ mittee on Nominations. 68 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY Report of the Committee on Nominations Mr. J. F. B. Mitchell: The Committee begs to nominate, for two vacancies on the Execu¬ tive Committee—which, as you know, in addition to the Treasurer, elected annually, consists of six members, elected for a term of three years, the term of two expiring each year, the other four remaining in office—the Committee begs to nominate, to succeed Dr. Keightley and Mr. Perkins,—Dr. Keightley and Mr. Perkins; for Secretary, Miss Perkins; Miss Chickering for Assistant Secretary; for Treasurer, Professor Mitchell, and for Assistant Treasurer, Miss Youngs. On motion, it was voted that the report of the Committee be adopted and that the Secretary be instructed to cast one ballot for the nominees. This was done, and the nominees were declared elected. After certain announcements had been made, the Convention was, on motion, adjourned until 2.30 p.m. Afternoon Session The Convention reconvened at the appointed time, and the Chairman called upon the Committee on Letters of Greeting, to report. Report of the Committee on Letters of Greeting Dr. Keightley: The Committee has a large number of letters from all parts of the world from Norway, from Czecho-Slovakia, from Sweden, from various Branches in South America’ from the English Branches, and from groups of students in Berlin. First, I will read a cable¬ gram which Mrs. Griscom has just handed to me, sent to her by members of the Norfolk Branch, “ Our heartfelt good wishes for Convention. May it be blessed! [signed] Alice Graves, Espoir and Hope Bagnell.” We had the very great pleasure of seeing Mrs. and Miss Bagnell here last year. [After reading from the letters, which are printed in full at the end of this Report, Dr. Keightley asked the Chairman to read a letter sent to him as Treasurer, by the Treasurer of the Aussig Branch, which he did.] The Chairman: Such a letter as this helps us to realize how casually, and as a matter of course, we sometimes regard our being here for Convention, especially those of us who live in New York. It is good for us to get a glimpse of how our distant members, working alone, look forward to the possibility that some one of their number may come,—the contributions of his fellows making it possible for him to do so. The Report of the Committee has brought a great many important considerations before us, and we shall look forward to the opportunity to read these letters in the Quarterly, when we may ponder over their significance. It was moved and seconded that the Report of the Committee on Letters of Greeting be accepted with thanks and that the Committee be discharged. This having been voted, the Chairman called for the Report of the Committee on Resolutions. Report of the Committee on Resolutions Mr. Hargrove: Mr. Chairman, I know that the members who are present will miss Miss Hohnstedt, and will be glad to know that she is well, although prevented from attending the Convention owing to the illness of a near relative. Listening to these reports and letters from so many members who live far away from us, and who in some cases are isolated, brought back to my mind the saying of F. W. Robertson| “What a man can do in conjunction with others does not test the man. Tell us what he can do alone/' I venture to suggest that as a test which we might well apply to ourselves. One advantage of speaking on behalf of the Committee on Resolutions, which reports in the afternoon, as well as speaking as a member of the Executive Committee in the morning, is that the afternoon gives one the opportunity to amend, and if necessary correct, statements T. S. ACTIVITIES 69 • 1 T find mvself greatly dissatisfied with what I said about medi- ne has made in the morning! I find myselt gr y ^ mightbeo{ some use, but is not, ine, because I spoke of pain as anyone who knows anything at all about modern -to realize, as soon as I had sat dow £; \ ine __ that “marvellous modem discovery . nedicine would at once have tho "^ t o£ d ^ ence knows next to nothing about the causes Actually, however, my point was that modems* ^ ^ q{ disease {rom without ,f pain. Because it is ma * e " a ' 1 . . j hat the cause of many if not most diseases «techie body and the astral body and the nerves, 1,1 No h one P her S e C wtuld make the Some or a Christian Science attitude toj^seaseb py evidence of an effort on the part of us would say that symptoms of a disease V ^ ^ that the bes t method of of nature to throw off that disease « i^isnot my purpose, however, to attempt an treatment is to assist nature ‘" that pr °“ idne but to suggest that what medicine needs is amateur discussion on the subject rema ; n j us t about as blind as it is to-day. Theosophy, because until it gets Theosophy J only be touched upon, The/another topic touched «P°m ^^"/“e “is doLg all that he can to help the was the suggestion that not every ineauitably. There may have been some present Society, or rather, that the load is car j k / w bow to do. There are in fact some who mentally responded: I am doing ev iyt^ 8^ ng their {ull weight. All that they who are doing much; who, outwardly ’ is P doing his utmost inwardly, but in some can give, they give. I will not say th y to self-hypnosis of one kind or another. cases, the inhibition there is due rea y o mis ’ an d to whom it seems that their offers There are others who really want to 1^off “to move chairs. When their offers are not accepted. They offer to addresser^ ^ they attribute the refusal to the are not accepted, how do they reac . t them a passion for moving chairs. Clearly, jealousy of the older members °r attribute to th P okler members, but to ask if it the sensible thing to do is not to blame fate or the teg ^ fa onese , f . what kind may not be possible that there is s ° me , enve lopes-1 happen to know one or two of the of defect? Well, somebody offers to ad& ^ whQ are perfect l y satisfied with it. younger members whose handwriting < - V ed There are always reasons why You could not convince them that it ought ^ t0 taUe not es very rapidly it is not just what it ought to be^ollege, aad “"™ ation .f. and a n explanation settles —reasons and excuses; no, not an excu ^ suggest that if anyone offers to address it; there is nothing more to be don . handwriting. You cannot do envelopes and the offer is no accepted,Jie tbere are worse forms of Yoga everything, but, if it be done for handwr iting, absolutely perfect, and in any case than to set out to achieve a. copp' P ^ dedde just wbere to draw the line, legible. It has to be left to the ind l] r about handwriting, but about things in Clearly, that may be an indication, not " ecea f" y Quarterlies or the ir envelopes to general.’ Suppose the offer is ^ accepted-there^ ^ true; but sup posing sort: "very grateful, but s ° me ^ 0 ' y d it be fore and has kept up an incessant chatter some very well meaning individual hasi do ^ ^ ente rtaining, even instructive; but all the time, -talk, talk, talk. y . otber people were trying to do some work an possibly that was not the best time ^'^atToL possible. to get things done. There are all ^ som ething?” “What can you It is imaginable that somebo y y ' „ Th some thing is given to be copie . do, can you typewrite?” J 1 ^L^lrew£ can copy any kind of paper accurately I wonder if you realize how few J* da{terward s with the original, by someone really trained so that it does not have to be com P d t o{ tbem are women. 1 hat goes very 70 THE 0 S 0 PHICAL QUARTERLY you could manage to be accurate. It would not necessarily follow, because during many previous years, you might have fallen into such habits of inaccuracy that even to save your life or that of your child, you could not achieve it. But granted the interest, the devotion, the conscience, the love,—accuracy could be learned. People talk about chGlaship. What do chfilas do? Surely the conquest of their defects, for love of their Master and from a desire to serve him, is part of their determination. Suppose then, that a member of the Society wants to help, but, quite unconsciously, cannot resist exploiting himself. He is asked to do something; he does it; puts a good deal of energy, of fire, into it, but unintentionally he does it for the glorification of self. He tells others how much he has done; or he congratulates himself on his superior performance. The trouble is that if self obtrudes itself beyond a certain point in work done for The Theosophical Society, it destroys that which it does. Further, it is more trouble than it is worth,—just trying to get rid of that other person’s protruding ego. It used to keep the older people busy most of the time. Let us assume that in another case, egotism is not the obstacle, but great excitability. Somebody gets extremely excited if anything goes wrong. Then three or four of the so-called Ancients have to come and soothe it down and make it all right again and say “There, there, go home”. That takes time and energy, and you would rather have done the task yourself in the first place. So good will is not enough; kindly feeling is not enough; desire to help is not enough. What is needed are those (there is such a thing as the business side of the Society), who are competent to do the work, and who do not require thr.ee or four instructors or three or four ch£las, or nursemaids, or anything else to see that a thing is done properly. You cannot leave behind all the ordinary qualifications. Any work requires a certain amount of tact, of consideration for others, of self-effacement, of adaptability, as well as good will. So. we should examine ourselves as to the directions in which we perhaps could do more than we are doing, and ask ourselves whether the reason we are not doing more is that we are not competent; that be¬ cause of personal limitations of some kind or other, it is impossible for the Society—and so for the Masters—to use us as we might wish. Much more could be said about that. The truth of the matter is that those who really want to serve the Movement and not themselves, will very soon make themselves efficient and competent. The fight is against the personality. That is the enemy. The barriers exist within ourselves and not outside of ourselves. We all know this theoretically, but the question is, how many of us act upon that knowledge. It is a commonplace that moral defects create mental defects. Vanity carried to a certain point becomes insanity in increasing degree, and so with all of the moral defects without exception. Long before insanity is reached, these defects result in mental blindness, deadness, inability to see anything straight, hopeless lack of judgment. In so far, therefore, as we are able to recognize our mental limitations, we ought to be able to trace them to our moral defects; and it is our moral defects and nothing else that stand in the way of our service of The Theo¬ sophical Society. This may not seem to have much to do with resolutions, but I suggest that it has everything to do with resolutions. It is a question of overcoming the personality. We have been dis¬ cussing that at recent meetings of the New York Branch. All religions, and Theosophy itself, exist for the purpose of helping us to recognize the personality as our worst obstacle so long as we identify ourselves with it. We must detach ourselves from it, and then learn to use it as it was intended to be used,—as an organ, an obedient instrument. I wonder whether you remember a story told years ago of an aspirant for chSlaship who went to a Guru and said, Please, I want to become a ch£la.” And the Guru or Adept looked at him intently for several seconds, and then said, “Good; go away and disembody yourself mentally, and see to it that you stay disembodied.” The aspirant for ch&aship went away, very much impressed, and for six months he worked at it. At the end of six months, he went back to the Guru and sat before him^expectantly. The Guru looked at him and said, “Didn't I tell you to stay dis¬ embodied?” The aspirant for chSlaship disappeared. It took him several years, first to read the riddle, and then to stay disembodied. Finally he did it. This has a great deal to do with work for The Theosophical Society. It is not a counsel of perfection. It is a T '’ to w mat we stay disembodied. - u^emooay ourselves men- .X’SS’Sirs iiTiXS'’’ ’“t ° u ' i “ * rm -* —. „i and who loves you very much. Of course that wo m"i! y °“ S1 ‘ by and whose hand you hold not beheve anybody is really guilty of it ' But Tw ^ % gnevous misunderstanding. I can Rasters. In any case, I !hL tLt L c^eptln f — the terribfe viriHty Whatever our ,dea of Masters a year ago at the w r t0 be Changed continually ought to be truer, ought to be higher- w/ol! , ‘ C °nvent 10 n, to-day our idea of them notions about them. It has been^d oTZl ^ a ^at manyS tenacious of ideas and customs; that they areve^fmth ‘ hey are ast °nishingly and that V th neVer ^ g °° d eIim inators; they neverTet rid ff an°Jh PaSt ~™ U$6d *° be ~ bu ‘ nd ‘hat this is one explanation of why they are to dav sld fanythlng - "ever discard anything ; We should watch ourselves for that. and see tot r/r Anally, in a great many cases r?' t ° nS ^, andthere are ma ny false inceptions when 7" ** " d ° f ideas - <* false con- be^i* 14 ^^ 5a ™°P£t®hgi°us people^*'Iatoostl-e^et th"!* 156 ^‘^‘go^by theTa^e f ^.‘has been so cheated. ssrsSd 1 d ° not * ** we to see the silver lining. We must“ to iZeZZ the douds - The troubles that that The Theosophical Society was founded - T ^ ° f ^ U was Partly for is-Tlw facts ” widely enough, broadly enough ^ Life of** alt ° gether for ‘hat, if you >s, always remembering that it is never the Ime f. ‘ * Se ' must be seen for what it dogmatize about it, to speak of it in universal Term^ w ° Pe ° ple ' We cannot afford to notion that the purpose of life on earth is that S; bat we must at any cost outgrow the right to happiness. We must leave it to fools t haVe g °° d «me»; that we hive a 0 appmess is worth anything. If they want to ° tbat tbeir right to the pursuit w.11 never find happiness if they pu sIIiTThe'7 IT ** ^ they can d ° *>; but they the more clearly one realizes that it is li f “ rther experience of life penetrate! know from what we have read that 6 tbe f ront hne trenches in France All of ’ ,«*• "Z ‘„T “ i“ --“S' 4L£S was paradise. How could it have hppra ° thers lt: was Purgatory. For a few were Other than they were. Eve^wJwasfocl m°‘ by pretendi " g ‘hat the faltl noise, a hell of odour; within them a helf of nerves C !' Vably hornb,e: ar °und them a hell of clmln they had surrcndered life itself and all that th^ POnSlWl 7~ eVery SOrt of hell: yet. completeness and perfection nf at were an d possessed berAncp nf If we fa,l to do it, let us not blame others ” fZ tb ® Same thi "g here in New York perfection; but let us at least see honestly where the t ^’ki^ 04 that any of us can do it to made some kind of sacrifice for The 6V6r find your P ers °nality saying it has ■t -t be true. It cannot ” f ° r disdp,esbi P. ** Hecause among many others, that "I go for ref We to the file ' S „ an mto,erab le untruth, for the reason I::;t h h °r nd ° f a »*£ sxs and he has not reached the point in evolution f ° r refuge from the world. ° ng as he says t0 himself, “ I have sacrificed ” You lid 1x5,166 ' S conceiv able so up skirt dancing for astrology. You may be able to ^^.32 72 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY aTJfbotS 4 S itsr 1 -* b r g here ever thought of ourselves as „ eu ■ , , has made! Have some of us the voice of the devil. It was suggested bv a friend Td ^ ° Ught t0 leam toreco S nize nonsense for people to complain as tW a~ Y i • day ° r tw ° ago ’ that is sheer of God, the voice of the Masters when the r t P nT’ they cannot recognize the voice is it that they f 7 'T *° the V ° ke ° f the devil - Why Masters? It is because they are listening ^ d< T ’ and . cannot recognize the voice of the take to be their own voices to their 0 Jf int, ranced ’ mornin E- noon and night, to what they out realizing that right dis^mLatLn w^r^bl ttm" to ^ themselves. Let us make a brave resolution to sacrifice theddiehls nt™ conversation. We shall get somewhere if we do that ° Ur ° Wn mental lutions that ought to be^Ide^VarticulIriy afTc ^ T™ a ™“' ng is the "umber of reso- and we cannot make too many resolutions —so lone “y ent,on ,° f The Theoso Phical Society; if you make one, and really keep it and work it thrn h k6Pt ' 11IS splendid ' however, one good resolution and really keep it—keen not nnh t °i S ° g ‘ ca end; becau se if you make where you want to arrive You will find the S 1 Ita ,etter h «t its spirit—you will arrive tion of The Theosophical Safety would *° thing Stop you ' The Conven- b W e e a e ssuTid y ‘° ^ ^ 8 ° al 35 the - Ult ° f a UR. Iorrey: The resolutions read: First-that Mr * , to reply to letters of greeting. Second- that thn r ^ ^ St ° n bC re ? uested and authorized the Society to Branches. Third - that the thanks of °" V !, ntlon authorizes visits of officers of Y 7-rr h - 'r'T '* ,h ' n '- universities to-day, where heads of denart WG . are ln the cond ition that exists in some do it themselves. The mechanical work cv,/ \a j ng done n ght and must therefore up the higher kind of work. If we are not ready to do th Y Wh ° ^ DOt yGt ready to take be ready to do the higher kind of work when those who are 'T‘ echata, “ l1 work "ow, how can we going to happen if the thing breaks down 5 domg 14 have gone on; and what is to-dirs Lr^STheirwar s ude for » -«*• It was moved, seconded and un-mi,™ I* Th fV S a part of my own resolution. Resolutions be accepted with the thanks of the Com-enrion. 1 ^ ReP ° rt ° f ^ Committee on taken place before, rather°than after^f^Renort ^ Rep °, rt of the Committee should have quite out of order, and will sit ££££££^met bT I a m me, there is one comment I wish to make ’ WW J u ' but pendln g their so instructing true of each and every one of us. We have all I am * T f OVe has said to us is recognizably applied to ourselves, and have seen somethin*’ 1 SU ?’ a Way in which what he said dividually, can make I wantTo" ad^S^he? d ° ab ° Ut that we,In- outlined. That is, if anybody JsheV “heft tW l ° the praCticaI ones wb ich he as to be available when things have to be done ^ Sh ° U ‘ d Stay around - 50 “• '° b “■" *■ “ ’ im - »• «« «=*«£ Eh" 2, tsr.t,? T. S. ACTIVITIES 73 If there is something to be done here, and the competent man is in Albany or Oshkosh, he is of no use. That means that we must be content to stand available, even when, apparently, there is nothing for us to do. I think that is a practical suggestion, so I make it. Perhaps I should add: be around without being too much “under foot”. We have reached now the point where, having heard the written word from our distant members—in this case bringing back to us so vividly the presence of many of them at our Convention last year—we can hear from those who are with us in person; from those Branches which have a delegate here to give us their report and good wishes, by word of mouth instead of by letter. Miss Evans: I have nothing very different to report this year from other years. We have held our meetings regularly and they are regularly attended. Our membership is small and it has grown very little this year. Our work is informal in character. It hardly Seems possible to do it in any other way, with such a small membership. We use the Quarterly very con¬ stantly, and some reading from the standard books, and we try always to have discussion of some topic that is very much in the public eye,—something that we should make up our minds about as a community. That is the basis of our meetings, and all that I have to report. Miss Wallace : I have often longed for such an opportunity as this, to express appreciation of these Conventions and all that they bring to us. I hope that now we shall be able to go back home and to free ourselves from those.hindrances which have been so clearly pointed out here,— so that we can put into our work for the T. S. some of the ardour and devotion that is characteristic of the spirit of this Convention. Mr. Waffensmith: First, I must express our gratitude that we could again attend Con¬ vention. In Cincinnati our work consists of a public meeting, once a month, at which papers are presented by different members, and are discussed. The rest of our meetings are for members only, and these are devoted to a study class in The Secret Doctrine , which has been of such interest and help that it was continued even during the hot months of summer. As recent members, Mrs. Waffensmith and I feel very grateful to those who have maintained the Cincinnati Branch so zealously—keeping the door open until the time came when we could enter it. Theosophy represents to us an open door, and this year I feel that I can pitch my tent a little closer than I could last year. Mr. Leonard: I remember the admonitions of those who spoke at prior Conventions that we speak what is in our hearts, and I shall endeavour to do that rather than to speak to the subject matter that-has been discussed here to-day,—on account of my inability to do so. When I left the West Coast for the East Coast, my objective—the same as with all of you— was a true spiritual centre. The thought has been current in my mind: how fortunate is the Karma of merit of a certain few which enables them to establish a connection between the world and the Lodge of Masters, a link of salvation; and how fortunate has it been for those members of this Society who have had continuous association at this centre; and how fortunate are they who infrequently contact it; and even how fortunate are those members who have even been prevented from attending,—fortunate in the sense that they are members of the Society and that they have the Theosophical Quarterly as a connecting link. I am happy to be here—in common with your happiness—and when we return to our respective homes, let us take with us some of the available fire for our own regeneration, that we may become better instruments of service in the Cause of the Masters, realizing the great gifts that the Masters bestowed upon us in the restoration of the ancient Truth in the western world which has made possible this meeting here to-day. In loving gratitude to the Masters, we should resolve, in some way at least, to make reciprocal gifts to them, in some way seriously to try to understand ourselves, that we may be better able to checkmate the impediments to our own development, to know that we are divinely equipped, and to learn how to use that equipment for the purpose for which it is intended. In regard to theosophical activities, some may plead lonely isolation, but it would seem that is due to a misguided imagination. A Master said, Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. Permit me to read a brief passage from Robert Browning’s Paracelsus. Paracelsus is speaking to Festus: 74 theosophical quarterly .... from childhood I have been possessed By a fire—by a true fire, or faint or fierce, As from without some master, so it seemed, Repressed or urged its current: this but ill Expresses what I would convey: but rather I will believe an angel ruled me thus, Than that my soul’s own workings, own high nature oo became manifest. ...” M—'» «« ThTOMiphical the continuity of conscious life nn all i a y re er to it at this time to remind us of speaking, we read I myself nev "fj ^no^T 3 day «****■ In the Gita, Krishna zzrjz *-— to w u e s r iz r t * r have requested*, ^ ‘° S ° me ""^rs who library, and standard theosoS^ks f "r Se O We have 3 drculatil * Of it. She superintends the re-binding of old mat* ™ lbranan ’ Mrs - Wmston > has charge new volumes of the Quarterly Sh/il i d g nes and old books and the binding of books. We circulate copies'o'/the^^UARTERL^amom ‘ l m ° ney reSU,ti " g from tbe ^ «* and adjacent states,—beginning in Eureka in the <?• E ‘ he P rraci P a l libraries of California Alameda, Palo Alto where Stanford University isVcaTe’d S ‘° San u Francisc °. Oakland, to San Diego; then to Albuquerque New Mexico to A ’ ’ S + 1 °^’ and thence further south and to Honolulu. In addition, we furnish copies of lhTn,u°p Ren0a ” d CarS ° n City ’ Nevada - Gospel, with whom we communicated and who signified their t0 m,nlsters of the to it for a purpose. To me, personally, it is due to tL fJ fru th3t ' S trUe ’ and 1 am referring than with the idea of our ability to make a worthy r t .J’ a ‘. wecome here more as recipients here from distant places are littfe th” 3 Se " Se ' ^ Wh ° C ° me to whom we owe a great debt of gratitude. “ chlldren th an certain little children I was re-reading M* Judgl’TLTew ^from tie Orf^ a "d" °" theoso P hic map. Recently about this map. It set me to thinking about differing Wasstruck with w hat he said there call attention to the work that we are trying to do ? n “ ? * might be possib,e to I Wish it were, especially as it is evident that Then™^™ 01186 ' The res P onse is not what get it to the people who are reaching out their hands f 7 ^ mUCh needed »~" b ut how to 3 Pr ° ble ™ tbat we, in Syracuse, have not yetTolved S ° methmg ’ the T not what, is one real thing 0 /tie yTar foAhe “w T ** C ° nVention is tba same activities as last year public meeting • , • b ’ ^ e have been carrying on the and the Reports of the New York Branch m Jr Wh,ch , we discuss the Convention Reports Emerson’s Essays. We are v£y £S5 for t'hf ’ “ 3 ^ daSS ’ devoted ‘his year to New York Branch meetings, and for the fact that th*™ ifY* receivlng the Report of the students who are sometimes called “the AnM’^W "" m3y ,00k to those older Ancients . We are especially thankful for the T. S. ACTIVITIES 75 Qua rterly articles by Mr. Johnston, Mr. Griscom and other regular contributors,—some of them we have not seen, but still they are personal friends of ours and we find ourselves turn¬ ing to them for help. We feel that we have little to give to the Society, but we can give our gratitude. Mrs. Lake: What Mrs. Rose has said is pre-eminently true of our Branch. We come here in the spirit of longing and expecting to receive, knowing that we are going to get more than enough to go upon until the next Convention, with its fresh inspiration, comes around. I fear we are too far away to be allowed to help set the chairs, using Mr. Johnston’s figure, and if we attempted them I am sure that most of them would be crooked. This is my tenth Conven¬ tion, and I have been asking myself what use I have made of that wonderful privilege. The first Convention, I well remember, was largely a maze to me, but there has been progress— and now I can see a straight path ahead; but there remain the terrible barriers of the personality which make it exceedingly difficult, at times, to keep to the path one sees. To-day it has been made plain to us what we have to do, and now it only remains to do it. Mr. Forbes: It gives Mrs. Forbes and myself great happiness to be at this Convention. There are now three members in Chattanooga. At present we are not able to meet regularly, so have no organized work. Now and again, we encounter those who wish to know what Theosophy is, what it offers as an explanation of life. This gives us an opportunity to lend Theosophical literature and help in any way we can. Having a young member has recently brought us in contact with a number of young people who are dissatisfied with orthodox religious teachings, which no longer have any authority for them. There are those who seem to be, at first, rather repelled by the name “Theosophy" and the reading we have suggested is not directly Theosophical, but along the lines of the Inward Light, the Creed of Buddha and the Creed of Christ. They may be thus led to co-ordinate the Christian teaching they have had with the other great religions,—and so gradually come to see the universal and fundamental truths underlying them all and, also, their supporting and complementary relation to the highest thought and feeling of our time. With this gained, and a great gain it would be, they may be ready to go on to the definitely Theosophical teach- mgs, or so we hope. One would like to say how valuable the Quarterly is. It brings a personal and individual message, helping with difficulties, opening up fresh vistas, and shedding light on the problem of the moment. The words, “As his growth slowly develops his intelligence”, have been running in my mind for many weeks. Looking back, to-day, four years since I was here, it is with astonishment that one sees how slowly one’s intelligence does grow! Mr. Hargrove’s address, pointing out to us so clearly the defection of our moral nature, must make us more strongly resolve to elevate our desires and grow in intelligence, so that we may discern and act. Mr. Bryant: The worst in me comes out at Convention, and the best takes its place — but I am ashamed and sorry to say that the effect of the last Convention has become thin and attenuated by the time the next one comes along. I think I have discovered a plan that Will extend the happiness and benefit that the Convention brings, for, if this one which lasts only a day can do as much for me as it does, clearly I must find a way to extend it. So I plan to go home and put on a 364 day Convention there, by myself. One of my problems will be to find a way of being as theosophically minded throughout my long Convention as one finds it comparatively easy to be here. Dr. 1 orrey: Perhaps it would be interesting to you to hear of what we are trying to do in the little study class at Amherst. We have been working this year on Mr. Judge’s Ocean of Theosophy and also on some articles from the Quarterly! We start at seven-thirty and end at ten o clock, and then have to be thrown out! One of the many things that we need to do is to learn to read. People simply do not understand terms and words,—force, energy, matter, will, spirit. They have such a hazy idea of the connotation of such words that they find it very difficult to understand what they denote. We must try to get down to bed rock bottom before we can properly build. This seems elementary, yet I have been surprised to find grown people say that they have never learned to study in that way. They have gone through school V* 1 1 76 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY where they were passed on, from one grade to another, in order to get rid of them,—and they now have to learn what sentences mean! Mr. J. F. B. Mitchell: Mr. Chairman and Fellow Members, I think the first thing we all want to do is to give some expression to our gratitude,—gratitude that we are here, gratitude for what it means to be here. The things I have had in my heart to say have been said, for the most part, and I think it is only a question of phrasing them slightly differently and perhaps bringing several things together. Take what was written in a letter to the Treasurer: “We are seizing the moment of inspira¬ tion to start a little fund”. Could there be a better keynote for all of us than to seize the moment of inspiration to start a little fund of spiritual capital with which to buy eyesalve that we may see! Every time we place a chair, every time we address an envelope with that intention, we may start our fund of spiritual capital. That is the first thing for us to do. In thinking of Convention, I asked myself what the facts were, and what they meant. We know the facts: that we are here at a Convention of The Theosophical Society, founded by the Masters, founded in order to bring to the world a knowledge of its destiny and of its own heart’s desire. Several years ago, the simile was used of the members of the Society as besiegers standing on the captured wall of a city, in which was imprisoned the world’s desire. Several other walls remained to be taken, but they had surmounted one, and knew that within was the world's desire, the world's happiness, the world’s goal. It is knowledge of that goal which the Masters wish to bring to mankind and for which they founded The Theosophical Society. Furthermore, it is the heart’s desire of every one in this room,—that life which the Theosophical Movement points out, the spiritual life, the life of service of the Masters, of chdlaship. The point I want to make is, that that is the heart’s desire of every one of us here, our path, our goal, our one hope of happiness. Mr. Hargrove spoke of those who come with “sacrifice” in their hands as being ten thousand miles from the Masters. It is not, and cannot be, sacrifice, because it is the path of our own happiness—a fact that we ought immediately to forget, for we are not to do it from that motive, but because it is the path for the world, and that is what the Society exists for, to bring it to the world. I asked myself what the Masters who founded the Society would like to have us bring here as we come to its Convention. Gratitude, of course, infinite gratitude; and after that, recog¬ nition—recognition of the facts, recognition of what it is that is offered to us, of what it is that we are looking at; recognition, first, of the fact that the Master at the head of our Ray has given to each one of us, as our heart’s desire, that path and that goal, ch&aship, the life of the spirit. Because that ideal had become so overlaid, so hidden from our view, that unaided we never should have found it, never should have recognized it, buried as it was beneath the heaped up debris of self,—they have brought down, through the Theosophical Movement, a representation of that pearl of great price, that, seeing it outwardly we may recognize it in¬ wardly, and recognizing it inwardly we may follow it and give ourselves to it wholly and completely. It is comparatively easy to see that here. We come here and recognize perhaps, that it is our heart’s desire. We recognize now something of the infinite value of the experience of the older members, of our need for it, something of the world’s need for it; and now we long to receive it, to draw out all that we can of it, to take it into ourselves, and to register it there permanently. This is the moment of inspiration that we ought to seize. Unfortunately, it does not always last. We do not always know, as we know at this moment, that it is our heart’s desire, that there is and can be no such thing as sacrifice in service. So we must seize the moment of inspiration now, must remember it, impress it upon ourselves, go forward with faith and courage that does not permit of doubt, resolve now that we will not permit ourselves to doubt for one moment that it is our heart’s desire,—so that when the inspiration, now being given us as a free gift, has passed, and darkness has come on again, we shall go on in that darkness like a traveller caught in the night, who sees, by a lightning flash, his home and his goal, and turns his face toward it. The night may come down again, he may stumble over rocks and roots, but he has seen his direction, and his goal, and he knows the way. Now is r—. .■ ■ * £ * T. S. ACTIVITIES 77 the time to impress that on our minds, so that when the darkness comes we may be prepared to hold steadily on our path, and may go on “placing our chairs”, and clearing the channel to the consciousness which is the deepest desire of our own souls. Mr. Perkins: While Mr. Hargrove was speaking to-day of the need for new ch£las from the ranks of the Society, I was asking myself, how many of us does he mean? I tried to reason it out: how many of us are there here to-day who, when we woke this morning, knew that it was the same man or woman who went to sleep last night? During the period of unconscious¬ ness of the body, there had been a thread of consciousness that had continued. We knew this morning—we were positive of it—that the man who woke is the same man who went to sleep. We have been told so many times that a similar continuity of consciodsness ought to last over the periods that we call death. If there be this continuity of consciousness, then we also know that there is a continuity of responsibility and of opportunity, because these always go with consciousness. I was reading some letters that Madame Blavatsky wrote to the Conventions of our Society in the last three or four years before her death, in 1891. She was making an appeal. She was telling us of the period of psychism into which the world was going, into which we, as members of the Society, were sure to pass. She was making an appeal—to us—to all members who would come into the Society afterwards—just the same appeal that Mr. Hargrove has made to-day. It comes down to us, from Madame Blavatsky, from Mr. Judge. The echo of that call comes even from those who have served the Lodge in former ages, when Theosophy was probably known under another name. Through whatever channel the urge may come to us, an answer must be made, a resolution must be carried into act and life. May it be that of selfless service of the Eternal, of the Lodge—the resolve to chGlaship. Dr. Clark: Often when I try to speak to friends about the theosophical life, speaking in as guarded a manner as I can, they receive an impression that I should like to drag them from a pleasant garden, which they much enjoy, for the purpose of imprisoning them in what would be to them a vale of tears. Some of those friends appear to be well fitted to enter the ranks of the Theosophical Movement, and it always disappoints me that I cannot share with them truths that are my most precious possession. A similar difficulty may have troubled other members. What help can be found for such a problem? The life and work of the poet Virgil seem to throw light upon the matter. From what is written in the sixth book of his JEneid (teaching concerning Karma and Reincarnation), Virgil might be thought of as having a foothold in the spiritual world which would lead him to view the material world as little better than a shadow, as an abyss of misery. It is just that view of worldly life that his verse expresses, his most quoted phrase being lacrimcB rerum , the “tears of things”. What impression, however, do people who are not interested in Theosophy receive, century after century, from this theosophical verse, if we may so regard it? An incident in the life of Edmund Gosse seems a typical answer to that question. As a boy of nine years, Gosse was being starved in a narrow world of sectarian dogma from which every¬ thing that savoured of the imagination had been rigorously excluded. One afternoon, in a spell of day-dreaming, the elder Gosse repeated aloud some Virgilian lines remembered from school-days. Immediately, the boy was on his feet, crying out in excitement: “What is that, Father? what is that?” Although the father would not satisfy his son’s questioning, that single repetition fixed the lines in the boy’s memory, and gave him entrance into a new and magical world. Why should Virgil’s poetry have that effect upon so many persons? Something of the devo¬ tion that Virgil put into the composition of his verse, we know—that he amended it assiduously, so that a solitary line would sometimes be the only result of a whole day’s effort. Stricken with mortal illness at an early age, he was cut off from the ten years of revision that he had planned for the JEneid, and directed that it should be burned on account of its lack of finish. Only the Emperor’s intervention rescued the manuscript from the flames, for grateful posterity. It is those crude (to Virgil’s judgment) verses that have opened to many men the gate into an enchanted world. Is not the conclusion obvious? Virgil put heart and mind and soul into his opportunity. 78 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY Alien though his form of expression may be, there is, nevertheless, something in the very atmosphere of his verse that can lift modem men out of their cramped, material interests into larger vistas. If, in our turn, we were to put heart and mind and soul into the very great opportunity that is ours—to live the theosophical life—might not the consequence be some¬ what similar? In speaking to friends about the truths of theosophy, our faulty words might be permeated with an atmosphere of devotion through which some one might rise above the doubts and debates of his own mind to the nobler planes of life. Mr. LaDow: Two or three speakers this afternoon have made reference to the fire from above and to our need to seize it and to keep it. This recalls a question asked at a recent meeting of the New York Branch, which unfortunately I cannot quote exactly. The purport of it was this: What must we do to act rightly? Is it always necessary to go and find the fire from heaven, to reach up for it—must we always go through that gesture, that motion? It has occurred to me many times during the Convention that we need not go far to find that fire; that the Masters have made it easy for us to find it, for it is here; it surrounds us; it is the one life which bathes us. Here and now, we have the opportunity to come in contact with a real spiritual life. The trouble is with ourselves. Our personal consciousness tends auto¬ matically to respond, not to the pure fire from above, but to its reflection in matter. Our instinctive desires—and that means our instinctive impulses to action—are brought into being by the fact that all that seems to interest us when we are not being coddled along, is the dregs of life, its shadows, things which appear so ridiculous here to-day, and yet who knows whether, in a week, they may not again assume a titanic shape. How have we fallen into such bad habits? One answer is that we have persisted, life after life, in giving attention to a certain kind of pernicious thought, and in yielding ourselves to a certain kind of pernicious action, until we have built up an unreal self which lives by wrong thought and by wrong action. What we have got to do is to build a new self. We must cease to be immersed in the material and psychic manifestations of the one life, and must learn to respond to its spiritual manifestations. It has been said this afternoon, as it has been said again and again, ever since the time of Lucifer and Prometheus who first brought the fire from heaven, that the way to begin to build this new self is to pay attention to thoughts which we know pertain to the real, and to act deliberately, even though it be against the grain, in accordance with all that we can under¬ stand of our duty. Like many ancient truths, this sounds like a platitude. But a platitude often contains a spark of the Eternal Wisdom. Mr. Auchincloss: Mr. Chairman, my mind has been turning all day long, and my heart too (especially since the reading of the letters of greeting) to those members who were here last year, who came from such long distances,—Colonel Knoff, Mrs. Bagnell and others. At this time a year ago there were many of us who had wanted to know and meet them. When we did meet them, there was nothing strange about it at all. We knew them already and had always known them. This year, they are not here, but they are not absent and never will be absent again. I should like to thank them for one of the things they did by coming last year: they emphasized the closeness of the tie that binds us here with all the members of the Move¬ ment in distant parts of the earth. Time and space and distance simply do not exist, really! It is not that we are sorry they are not present to-day, and that we miss them; but that we are so glad they are here with us. Mr. Acton Griscom: Mr. Chairman, I do not think that any of us could have listened to what was said this morning and again this afternoon, with an undercurrent at times that seemed almost of desperation, without finding it in our hearts to respond, to want to offer our¬ selves again, to want to make good in the way that those older and wiser wish us to make good. Year after year at Convention, we have heard this appeal. Year after year, to a certain extent, our hearts have responded. We have wished to do this thing, to give ourselves to pass through the gate. The fact that that appeal is made again to-day is, to a certain extent proof positive that we have not achieved that which the “Ancients” hoped we might achieve! We have not done it and yet we want to, and we must tell them that we want to, and that we are here for the one purpose and desire of trying to make sufficient resolution, really this time T. S. ACTIVITIES 79 to succeed,—not for our own sakes but for their sakes, for the sake of the Masters who founded this Society and the Theosophical Movement. I was thinking during lunch why it was that as part of what Mr. Hargrove had to say to us this morning, he spoke about science and the limitations of science. Obviously there are many of us who are looking for the best in science, who have seen it grow and improve since the time when Madame Blavatsky first began her attacks against dogmatism and narrow¬ mindedness. But there must be something deeper, and it occurred to me to apply the prin¬ ciples, the mistaken attitudes of science, to oneself, and to discover if possible whether we ourselves are children of our generation, which is, at present, pre-eminently a generation given over to science (it looks to science for its ideals and its religion), whether we are not children of our generation, at least in part of our natures, doing the same thing and making the same mistakes. The answer to that is, Yes. Science wants to study facts. It says it does not, cannot, know very much about religion and the spiritual life. To a certain extent, we are doing the same thing,—looking at our natures, problems, difficulties, and up to a certain point recognizing them, studying them; but constantly we exclude the light of the spiritual world. We do not apply the principles of the spiritual life to the facts of everyday existence. Because of that, we are unable to cope with, properly to interpret and understand our own lower natures. They run away with us. They lead us astray. They take us where we do not wish to go,— just as science with all its inventive ability is finding that its discoveries are being used for the destruction of mankind—its guns, its murderous gases and so forth. We have more opportunity to save ourselves to-day than the scientist, because at least we have some under¬ standing, some recognition of spiritual law and of the spiritual world. We see ourselves as a house divided against itself, a higher nature and a lower nature; and somehow or other we have got to discover how to apply, to bring down the principles of the spiritual life which we desire, which we respond to here at these Conventions, into the facts of our personalities. The last paragraph in the April issue of the “Screen of Time” has already been referred to, where it was suggested that the keynote of this Convention would be silence or stillness, and that it was hoped that people leaving this Convention would speak not so much of its force as of its stillness. There we could make a practical application of how to bridge the gap between our understanding and recognition of the spiritual world, limited as that understanding may be, and of the world of our daily consciousness, the facts of everyday life. We could attempt daily to feel something of the silence, of the note of spiritual sound as the Voice of the Silence paraphrases it,—that voice of the silence of which we are dimly conscious here at Convention time. I believe that if we took only five minutes or three minutes, every day out of the three hundred and sixty-five between us and the next Convention, and sought the silence, sought that which we feel in the background of all that has been said, looked for the depth in the heart of this Convention, contributed to by the hearts of each individual member both here and here in spirit,—if we made it a practice for three minutes, five minutes, every day between now and the next Convention to retire into ourselves, and seek that silence and what else is hidden therein, it would go a long way to enable us to do and to accomplish that which the “Ancients” are asking of us. Mr. Saxe: It is not surprising that our minds should all move along about the same line toward the end of Convention to-day. What little I have to say is not very different from what has already been said. An experience which we all had as children was something like this: we were at school; we were seven, eight or nine years old; we were trying to study our lesson. We looked up for a moment from our book to the teacher. He motioned to us to come up to his desk. Our heart beat faster. We went, and were given a very important commission— to go upstairs, two flights up, to the principal’s office, where we never had been sent before, to give him a message,—a message that the class would be ready in ten minutes. That did not mean much to us, perhaps, but we knew it was very important! We went down the hall. Other boys may have been in the hall or on the stairs and they may have called to us, but they were of no importance in comparison with our commission. We went upstairs, found the principal, delivered our message, and went back again to our room with a feeling of accom¬ plishment and relief in our hearts. 8o THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY We have all had the experience of having an important message to deliver. It is a feeling and consciousness^that we are well acquainted with. We can use that knowledge and experi¬ ence to carry out some of the ideas which have been presented to us so clearly to-day, because obviously each and every one of us will have a message, and that message may be expressed in many different ways. One way would be to remember that we have a message to give to the world when we start out each morning—a message of what I might call the atmosphere, the consciousness of the T. S. Convention. In other words, whether we are walking up the street, or whether we are in our office or in our church, or wherever we are, to the extent that we are able to recall the consciousness, the feeling, the point of view which we have when at Convention—better still, perhaps, to use our imaginations, and to see that consciousness of ours as like unto a little spring, trickling into the muddy pool of the world's atmosphere—to that extent, at least, we shall be contributing to the Cause, and helping the world around us. Of course, such a suggestion as this might easily be misunderstood. It might add to our feeling of self-importance, or its meaning be twisted in many ways, but I do not believe there is danger of this. Such a line of thought has sometimes been of help to me, and it comes to me forcibly at this time. Mr. Miller: I am sure that all the members of the New York Branch share with me the feeling to which Mr. Auchincloss referred, of the great comradeship that we experience in having with us our members from distant points, and, having once known them, of regarding them as with us in spirit thereafter. We know that we have a common mind and common experience, and it seems to me that the same thought applies to those who have gone before and whose pictures are on the walls,—the founders of the Movement and those who have done so much for it since. That brings me to something that was said to-day by Mr. Hargrove and Professor Mitchell in the way of calling our attention to what we might do and are not doing. It seems to me that a gentle hint, such as the statement that the burden is inequitably distributed, should shame us into seeing that that condition does not continue. Also, Professor Mitchell's sugges¬ tion that we can simply stand by, waiting, reminds us that "they also serve who only stand and wait". In order to be ready to serve, we must do something to make ourselves fit, and if we have not been called upon in various directions in which we have imagined ourselves fit it is our duty to inquire what is lacking in us. That is where the keynote of the Convention comes in: only in silence and by quietly searching ourselves can we discover what these hin¬ drances are. Those of us who have come to these Conventions for five years, ten years or more, have perhaps fallen into the condition to which Mr. Box referred, when he spoke last year of admoni¬ tion after admonition. We have perhaps been beaten into a sort of insensibility; but the reason for that is that we have not acted on these admonitions. They fall on deaf ears To revert to what was said this morning, those of us who are responsible for this inequitable distribution of the work should recognize the fact that a sense of decency and of loyalty to our leaders should compel us to see that this condition is remedied. Mr. KobbG: I have little to add, but I should like to thank, on behalf of mvself and perhaps of others who are members of the New York Branch, those delegates from out of town who are here to-day, and also the members-at-large. I think it is delightful,-the way they tell us that they come to receive and have nothing to give, and then stand up and give 1 It is a very good lesson also to many of us who are here all the time—we who are so beautifully hedged in as we know-to compare ourselves with those who stand somewhere alone, out of town in the outposts, on the frontiers. There is not the hedging in there, that we have. It seemed to me this morning that those appeals that were made could be especially taken to mind and heart by those of us whose privilege it is to be living here in New York. There have been many remarks made about the Theosophical Quarterly, and I was lopmg that somebody would mention that the April number is Volume XXV No. ioo. I should love to see that written into the records of this Convention. 1 have . been thinking also of how we can best apply in some practical way what was said is morning about not leaning on", but carrying on. I have been looking for something T. S. ACTIVITIES 81 some of them at a great distance. All who have come from out of town and*have spoken to us, and most of the letters from distant Branches, have expressed in one way or another grati¬ tude to the Quarterly, gratitude to the editors of the Quarterly. There is one absolutely practical way, it seems to me, that every one of us can carry, and not "lean on". We all have duties, and this can be put into each and every one of them. It is that we should consider ourselves, each and every one of us, as continually contributing to the Quarterly, whether we write a line for it or not—because The Theosophical Society has a common mind, has an oversoul, and as we contribute to that oversoul we contribute to the Quarterly; and we can do that, all of us, all the time, wherever we may be and whatever we have to do. Mr. Armstrong: I have felt it a great privilege to be here to-day. I think we all get a large amount of inspiration from these Conventions. That which stands out particularly in my mind as the result of what has been said this morning and this afternoon, when we younger members were admonished "to do something about it", is that the most difficult part of it is to begin. It has been my own experience and that of other young engineers that when we attempt to design a piece of apparatus, we are inclined to sit and wonder where to put the first line. It frequently seems as if the hardest thing in designing the apparatus were to decide where to put that first line—just as though it mattered. It does not really matter because you can always rub it out and put it somewhere else. The difficulty that we face is to begin; and all I can say about it is that the important thing is to put that first line, that first act, somewhere. I think it is probably much better to make a mistake and put it in the wrong place, than it is to sit wondering where to put it. Dr. Woodworth : I have been asking myself why we are so slow to do these things that we are told are expected of us. Not only are there many lines pointed out to us, but everything seems to point in the same direction. One of the members was suggesting to me that whether in music in art, or in daily life, there are always things that point toward the door that is open. It is mostly a question of making up our minds to get busy. Miss Richmond: One thought about ch&aship has been going through my mind, es¬ pecially while Mr. Gnscom was talking. We have heard all our lives: 4 ‘Ask and ye shall receive seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you." What would happen if we all really believed it! The Chairman: If there be no further business to come before us, we have drawn near to the time when we ought to adjourn. I have one thing to confess,-something I want to say. Every little while I find myself insulting the intelligence of those who come here. It is an anonymous insult. I do not attach doubts and suspicions to anyone in particular, but I ask myself: is it possible that someone thinks thus and so,—in a way in which a really intelligent and sensible person would not think. The question in my mind at the present time, having eard much said of the "Ancients" and of the younger members, and of the inequitableness of the distribution of the burden,-my insult to the intelligence of my anonymous hearer is to wonder whether he thinks that the "Ancients" believe that they are adequate to their tasks have been carrying their share of the burden, have been aiding, as they ardently long to aid' the Masters whose Movement this is. * I said that the temble thing about what Mr. Hargrove was saying to us was its truth its application to each and every one of us,-our inadequacy: the way in which we permit some¬ thing that seems only a small and unconsidered weakness, some little self-indulgence that we do not really care a rap about, to stand in the way of a service that with all our hearts we long to render and do not render. If some of us are overburdened, the Masters and their chdlas may have to take our places so constantly that they are more overburdened still. The truth of what Mr. Hargrove was saying applies to all members. It applies most keenly to those who most long to serve: they are the most conscious of the inadequacy of their service. Another question is whether or not this Convention will seem to you, as you go out, to have been marked by silence, and whether a word of reconciliation may not be necessary between that keynote and what I, at least, did my utmost to urge you to feel, and that is that you are called to battle, called to a test which will search all you are, and which you can only pass \ % 82 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY q S al ! you are; and that that test is not in some remote future, but is now, at hand. Superficially that seems not quite in consonance with silence, and yet science itself—and I was told that I was overkind to science, and I agree—science, even as taught and misrepre¬ sented, is beginning to suggest to us that stillness, if pushed to its extreme, can be as potent a force as any that is known. We have but to cool substances below that point of inner agita- lon which now marks them—that constant interplay and interference and eddy currents of atom against atom—we have but to cool substances down to stillness, to find that we are generating in them an explosive force that may utterly disrupt them. There is much that needs disruption in the world and in ourselves, from which we must free ourselves before we can liberate our energies. Perhaps we shall find that liberating power in stillness of the soul, in stilling the voices of the body and of the mind that we may receive the voice of guidance and inspiration from above. It is only as we do reach outward somehow, open somehow our own natures to the current of life that flows from above, and close ourselves to that which comes from below, that we shall be able to fulfil our task, or be able even to make those resolutions which we are not asked to adopt as a Convention, but of which we have seen a " d ^s members adopt. It is only as we reach towards stillness that we shall find the will and the desire to make these personal resolutions, and find the strength to carry ive and f T ° f ki " d ““ We make our mission in th ® world effect ive, and fulfil the trust that has been imposed upon us by the Masters and handed on to us xttr? . 0n i y f ’ to °’ can we fumi the desire to serve ’ which 1 th;nk * ™ S t real the most potent and the uppermost desire in the hearts and minds of all members of Of rrT" a f', COmes l° a a ° se —t^t something of that inequitableness of the burden aL avo l" ° f ^ T, ’ tS 0Wn f °" y ' S ° mething of that heavy burden of sacrifice '° V ! and " easeless Iabour and thwarted endeavour, may be lifted from the Masters shafl be mSe^ ,1T* *"7?- ** ^ r6Ward they Can be given: that their sacrifice shall be made fruitful in the hearts and lives of those for whom it was made. du ! y seconded - il was voted that the Committee on Credentials and the votTd to adjourn eSO U S ^ dlSCharged the thanks ° f the Convention. It was then Isabel E. Perkins, Secretary of Convention. Julia Chickering, Assistant Secretary of Convention. LETTERS OF GREETING . , 0 Arvika, Sweden. their C0nVent !°Z Ass ™ bl *d: AH members of the Branch send you and your work be blessed" 8 ngS ’ ** ^ f ° r the ‘“ g V*r. May you Fraternally yours, Amy Zetterquist, Chairman , for the Arvika Branch. Tn th* • n - a Aussig, Czecho-Slovakia. heart of life. ’ g US renewed determination to go forward to the T. S. ACTIVITIES We will go privilege, the with you, and we are sincerely thankful always for assistance, for the great grace to go with you to the Lord’s table. Sincerely and fraternally, Hermann Zerndt, President , Aussig Branch T. S. Whitley Bay, England. To the Members of The Theosophical Society in Convention Assembled , the members of the Whitley Bay Branch send sincere fraternal greetings. The holding of Convention year after year symbolizes the idea of continuity, and to be continuous it must be real. All our members therefore unite in thought with you, so that the present Convention may be a real effort on the part of all, to express their ideals of truth, reality, and unity, which form the fundamental teachings of Theosophy. With best wishes, Yours fraternally, Fredk. A. Ross, President , Blavatsky Lodge. Cincinnati, Ohio. To the Members of The Theosophical Society in Convention Assembled: Greetings from the Cincinnati Branch. That all of us may grow through Recollection and Detachment is our earnest wish. Herman F. Hohnstedt, President. Agnes McCormack, Secretary. Miss Margaret D. Hohnstedt wrote: There is nothing I would rather do than attend the annual Convention. . . . But I am sure the spirit of the Convention will reach me, for how can it be otherwise. More and more I realize the wonderful privilege that is ours; words fail me to express myself. My prayer is that I may prove worthy. Gateshead-on-Tyne, England. To the Members in Convention: The Gateshead members send their greetings to all assembled, and our best wishes for the success of the Convention. We are sorry we cannot be with you in the body, but we shall send you the best of thoughts. Yours very sincerely, Percy W. Ward, Secretary , W. Q. Judge Lodge. Sanfernando de Apure, Venezuela. To the T. S. in Convention Assembled: The members of the “Jehoshua” Branch send their sincere greetings. The Branch has been sustained by a concentrated effort of high thought and its work inclined to a loving reverence to Masters. To “feel ” Masters, members are obliged to work thoroughly for purification of mind , word and action. Our hearts will be with you during the Convention, and you have our best wishes for a very successful session. D. Salas BaKz, President. 8 4 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY East Boldon, Co. Durham, England. To the Members of the T. S. in Convention Assembled: The Members of the Krishna Branch, South Shields, send greetings and best wishes for the success of the Convention. We look forward to the Convention each year, with real hope and joy; realizing, although many miles separate us, that the “fellowship of kindred hearts” is a very real thing. We “feel” the “Unity ” which is between us, and sense some of the spiritual elevation of the Con¬ vention. We trust all will be strengthened for a new year of effort consecrated to the Masters’ work in the world. Fraternally yours, H. Maughan, Secretary . Middletown, Ohio. To the Members in Convention Assembled: It is indeed a very great pleasure for us to send greetings^to our fellow members from all over the world. May the “Great Master of the Universe give us Light and Understanding, that we may continue, another year, to spread “Truth” to all Humanity. Yours fraternally, Rossie Jane Whittle, Secretary. Newcastle-on-Tyne, England. To the Members of The Theosophical Society in Convention Assembled: It seems, as the years go by, that life is more strenuous and exacting, and that we need all our love and devotion and understanding to carry us through. We are thankful, therefore, that we have weathered the storms, completed the.voyage, and come to port—the Convention—once again. So we would hasten to greet you most heartily on this memorable occasion (and all these occasions are memorable), that you may feel our interest and the spirit of our presence in your deliberations to-day. We feel that we need to brace ourselves, and to gird on our spiritual armour for the next phase of the battle, that we may be prepared and not found wanting: that, like “the fearless warrior” referred to in The Voice of the Silence, realizing that no sacrifice is too great we also may go forth determined to give our fullest contribution to the Work of the T. S. and all that it stands for. Assuredly, then, as we do this we shall be whole-hearted and one-pointed in the Masters service. With best wishes for an inspiring and invigorating Convention, from which all may be stronger and more alert, J On behalf of the Members of the Newcastle-on-Tyne Lodge, Believe me to be, Yours faithfully and fraternally, E. Howard Lincoln, President. T Aylsham, Norfolk, England. lo the Secretary T. S.: I am requested by the members of the Norfolk Branch to send the greetings and best wishes of the Branch for the Convention. We have no Delegate this year be 1 th you in thought and in spirit ' and 1 think "Xd EES y^r the limitations of time and space grow less, and become of little real importance—for and Se^fcommon 6611 "* eterna, ~ whiIe the bond «»t unites us, fellow students C ° mm0n CauSe> becomes stron e er a " d m °re real. We are much helped by T. S. ACTIVITIES 85 the excellent reports of the meetings of the New York Branch, which we find most inspiring, and we are very grateful for them. They bring with them something of the atmosphere of the Movement, and help us to realize the wonderful work which you are all doing—and we are filled with gratitude for the privilege of thus sharing in the life which exists only to serve the Master. I have little to report. Our Branch has neither gained nor lost any members. We continue our study by correspondence, and by the circulation of papers, commenting on the study, each member asking questions which are answered by the others. We devoted the month of August to the study of the Convention Report, which we had received in the July Quarterly, and since then we have taken Light on the Path, which we are still doing. We pray that the Convention may be a very good one, and shall look forward to hearing about it. With all best wishes, and our fraternal greetings, Yours sincerely, Alice Grave’s, For the Norfolk Branch. Mrs. Graves also wrote:—I have sent the report of the year’s work, with the greetings of the Norfolk Branch to the Convention, to Miss Perkins, but I want to say further how much I, in common with all our members, shall be with you in thought and spirit next week. As you know, our Branch is a very small and scattered one, and we can never all meet to talk of the work; but I think that in some ways we gain by this, though the disadvantages appear to be great. We study and work by correspondence, and for this a greater effort is needed than in personal communication. We learn to know each other through the inner senses only, and thereby escape the distractions caused by personality. The “ comments ” written each month on the study, throw light upon its meaning, by the expression of the different points of view of the students. I do not know if I am right in thinking that at the present time, individual inner work is required more than the outward expression. The world is such a terrible place, with its turmoil and chaos, its superficiality and self-seeking; the craze for sensation, excite¬ ment, noise, and the continual search for pleasure, are appalling; and the many cults that have sprung up, so-called new-thought, spiritualism, the many sects, some of whom call them¬ selves Theosophists, Anthroposophists, and other such names, make it impossible for the few of us who are trying to live the Theosophical life to attempt any propaganda. It is difficult not to be dismayed and discouraged, but we have had such great privileges, and so much help has been given when it has really been needed, that I do not think our faith is failing us. We have been told that those who are with us are more than those who are against us, and we know that the Black forces must ultimately be defeated. Though it is impossible for me to attend the Convention personally, I shall feel much more a part of it this year, because of what Mrs. Bagnell has told me of it, from her personal experience of last year. She has brought the spirit and atmosphere much nearer, and has told me of the wonderful power and force and devotion which fill those days. As we grow older in this life, and perhaps nearer to the heart of the things that are real, we find that space and time and distance do not really exist, and I am very grateful for being allowed to share in the thought and the light that you and those who have worked so long and learnt so much, possess, and for your help in our studies, the Quarterly, and the reports of the meetings of the New York T. S. Branch. And more than all, for the knowledge of the sympathy and understanding that I feel you have for our efforts, poor and unworthy though these are. We try to keep a little centre here for the Masters’ intention, and we pray that we may not fail in faith and devotion, and in the desire for disciple- ship. May the Convention be a very happy and united one to you all, and through you, to us here. Mrs. Bagnell wrote:—This will reach you before Convention, and although I know that Mrs. Graves has sent in her usual report and a letter of greeting from the Norfolk Branch, I feel that I must send you a few words of personal greeting and ardent good wishes for its success. Last year I had the great happiness of being present at the Convention, and I need not say how much I wish that it had been possible for me to go again this year. As I 86 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY cannot do that, I am tiymg in every way to prepare for it, so that I may really be there in spirit, and perhaps be able to add my tiny mite of spiritual life and force to it I have been studying H. P. B.'s “Esoteric Character of the Gospels ”, and a sentence in it — T Th^nt- th he T : 7 e are n0W in 1887 and t ^ le nineteenth century is dose death. The twentieth century has strange developments in store for humanity and seeL to n me C that “ the lLt ame ' ” 7 "* Seei ” 8 h ° W thiS pro P hecy is b «ng fulfilled, and it oT,, a ° l yCar ° r ’ 6VentS haVe been movin 8 increasing rapidity. One is appalled at times when one gets some realization of what is going on in the world at present, and above all what underlies it all. As members of the T. S., who have received so much, our responsibilities are very great our ‘"777 T r T 3 ChanCe ° f proving that we realize are anxious to prove our gratitude to the Masters m some practical manner. I greatly like what has been slid in the Apnl Screen of Time about the stillness that should be the chief characteristic of this year s Convention There is no force so great as stillness, and surely there can never have been a greater need for it in the world than there is at the present day. So I hope that It this Convention the members may not only feel but contribute to its stillness and make of it the keynote of their lives during the coming year. Miss Bagnell wrote:-I have been thinking much of "preparation for Convention» You will receive the greetings of the Norfolk Branch, but I want to send this line o "greeting 7 good wishes. You know that all our thoughts will turn to Headquarters, and we shlll honl to be near in heart, remembering that we had the great happiness of being in New York last 7 r f h t r ;7 ' 3 ! 7 b t 3 “ me of ' nspiration and renewed determination, with the Presence of the Leaders to set our hearts on fire; and may we all respond to our utmost. ~ _ Oslo, Norway. I he Theosophical Society in Convention Assembled: From Members of th* Ddn r> , Norway, Greetings. We join you to-day in mind, heart and spM pray hatyo Ur d£’ erations may resound with eternal harmonies, and convey the Lodve nn d 7 and faithfu! workers of the Society, thereby helping us to serve the Nfasters aceording toTbelr Fraternally yours, Ths. Knopf, Chairman. m the T. S., has been of the greatest importance and help r"T'|. [J '? mmenC W ' jrt: p rs this great event in my life with heartfelt thanks T fppi c i + 1 h Ways remember at 64 W^hington Mews are, to me, living pictures never to b" ^ ^ meetings of th^NewVm^Branch, at whkti! you^always 7*' “* *° ** ^ ° f the of daily life and of our inner development. They are as UehthousTk ™ St questior: Recently there has been a great controversy 77 Z 8 “ aho ™g us the way ahead, and the liberal Lutheran clergy. . . Such religions mn? 3156 " 8 '" ° betWeen the orthodox and weeding of ,h, held. i, f„„S7«S'i”r * *—*• be sown, in order to make the harvest a rich one Simil* • ™ ! d ready sown > an ^ to places, though different in their outer manifestations. Thil > ° ther courage and consolation in our often seemingly frnitw „ i 8 at 1 thls way ’ 14 Sives Branch is of good cheer and ready to lor^paSlTan^TT ^- Theref ° re ' our little knowing that, though our ability to do outer wlrk m “der to T'TT* 3 C ° Urage and faith - valuable work is performed individually by what we are There is ‘T” “ "’, 7 ' th ® m ° St us to do, and at all times; and the work must be done ’ h*"’ eXce,lent work for T. S. ACTIVITIES • 87 Though not personally present at the Convention I shall try to be very close to you all in spirit when the time comes, thus hoping to share a little in the tremendous spiritual force then placed at your disposal. Please remember me cordially to all friends at the Convention last year who may be present at the coming Convention also. Caracas, Venezuela. To the Members of The Theosophical Society in Convention Assembled: On the solemn occasion of our Annual Convention the members of the Venezuela Branch send to their comrades in work and purpose their most fervent fraternal greetings, and join in the festival of spirit made flesh by this gathering of souls in the discussion of what most concerns Humanity. We shall be separated on the physical plane by the mayavic distance of this world of three dimensions, but shall be united in that world where love makes everything of the present. On the same day and at the same hour we shall also assemble here, and as we cause the fire of our aspirations to rise to the heights, the Masters will behold but one flame. This communion is maintained not only on the ineffable occasion of the hour of our Conven¬ tion, but lives burning in the greater part of our souls; in it we move and have our being, blossom and grow. And so, in giving you an account of our local activities, we recognize that these are not simply the result of our work only, but the local expression of the collective Soul of our Society, which works here through the medium of our Branch and its members as vehicles; and we feel overwhelmed by the weight of so great a responsibility; overwhelmed by the thought of how different would have been the result were it not for our faults and omissions, for our poverty in real love. In stating the fact, at the same time we endeavour to strengthen our conscience in order to perform with efficiency from this time forth the task assigned us, making use of the past as our teacher. A communication of this kind, then, is not alone the actual relation of what has been done, but also of what we purpose to do. For an examination of conscience must include in itself the purpose of amendment—a vision of the future through the telescope of the past. This year we shall not have the pleasure of seeing ourselves represented among you by a delegate from our own body, notwithstanding our desire to send one. But we accept this impossibility with resignation, doing the best we can on our part to leave the results to the Great Law. The programme of our Branch meetings and studies has been carried out in its entirety, no interference with it being permitted for any cause. In all of them greater attention is observed, better fulfilment of duty, more loyal comradeship, the devotional note being pre¬ dominant in all. Among the subjects studied during the year we will note the following as the most important: Socialism in the light of Theosophy; Theosophy and the Theosophical Movement; and— what most stirred the majority of the members—Christianity and the Christ, in their relation to Theosophy. The inestimable Quarterly affords us on every occasion boundless service. Our plan of translations follows its course. The principal translations appear in El Teosofo, but we are also preparing to publish, when occasion permits, the principal works in our litera¬ ture which have not yet been translated into Spanish. A special fund has been created for the publication of the Letters of Mr. C. A. Griscom. Special themes for our consideration have always been,—the mercy and the justice of the Masters, and the necessity of turning to them as an indispensable requisite for the genuine student of Theosophy: a duty which calls for great and arduous toil, but which at the same time, as Mr. Johnston says, constitutes an immense and ever-increasing delight. This is the case with many of our members. Speaking collectively we can say that the Branch has taken Theosophy most seriously. As soon as we learned the watch-words which Mr. Johnston gave at the last Convention—to work for the Movement persistently, with renewed enthusiasm, with firm and strong resolution, at every moment of life, day after day, hour after hour— there was rooted in the consciousness of this Branch the resolution to respond, and in the hearts of many lives the determination which will be translated into the ineffable recompense 88 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY °‘ “* N " * i » m '- ***" -»■» *° «■ The Venezuela Branch, then, is endeavouring in the most loyal and diligent manner to co- and^mal, t E 1 f rt r rk r aSSigned ‘° The Theos °P hi “l Society by its Master Founders and then th h worthy of passmg on the light which it receives, first in its own country .tself but works to U h & l Spanish-speaking world; and it knows that it can do nothing by itself but works to be the vehicle to respond unwearyingly. The Branch believes that it has a pr °°i° ** castl "S a glance over itself, it sees that many hearts have greater courage a greater thirst for justice—although they express it in their own way—and that it diffuses an atmosphere which regenerates and elevates. Our work for the year might be summarized as follows; On the physical plane—order urbanity; on the ethical -a closing up of the ranks on the journey toward a more'^nite JahS, IS,” " *■” <■> Christianity; a With gratitude to the Master Founders for this new blessing of being permitted to assemble in their name, to them we make our supplication that this Convention may inspire us with renewed zeal and furnish us with a new weapon. 7 P Wlth A. GonzAlez-Jim£nez, Corresponding Secretary. of”the B™c S h meSSage iS 3 C ° mP0Site ° f the VariOUS messages formula ^ by the members rr> , r . . _ f La Guayra, Venezuela. Yo r k ° f , T, r? 0 p 't al Socie ‘y in Convention Assembled in the City of Nno heart^'desfres" ^° UT Convent ‘ on th *s y° a ^and^I do'so^th^my'best^vis'hes arid most^sfncere For some time past, since reading Mr. Johnston’s reply to my letter of greeting to the r Ei«»Mc 7 r,Si, K c 3 .“ I'tarra'rr 6 '?'””"’'” thus of an experience in the greatest measure profitable by reasTnrf the^!^"^ m£ which this unique occurrence of a Convention of the , • ,°„ e s P lntual significance ..L,r pl ‘“‘ So "“ y 1 *»* May your approaching Convention, then, be the verv best thp a • in spiritua! fruit, the most sublime in its teachings, of afl that' have^recededT' May the tongues of fire of Divine Wisdom descend from heaven to infl.m * i, illumine our thoughts. aven to ln ^ ame our hearts and Fraternally yours, J- Melit6n Quintana. To Th* Tbo ’ / c . „ ( Telegram ) Salamanca, N. Y yoy too., .rS;'yo 1 -» »«.«. to to Sincerely, Homer P. Baker. Best wishes, Yours sincerely and fraternally, Arthur W. Barrett. T. S. ACTIVITIES 89 Maracaibo, Venezuela. Secretary T. S.: Since my arrival here I had the good luck of meeting an old member of our Rama [Branchi, and we meet every Saturday evening at the same time they meet in Caracas. We have dedicated our meetings to the Masters. May our hearts grow through prayer and devotion to receive Their light and to interpret Their Will. Maybe this letter reaches you on the eve of Convention. That day I shall be with you all in silent aspiration, for I intend to consecrate the whole day, just as we used to do in Caracas, to that Day of Days. Please bear my message of fraternal love to all the brothers. Fraternally yours, J. F. Bermudez. Mr. Walter H. Box wrote (the Pacific Branch of Los Angeles being represented personally by Mr. Leonard): I feel so hungry myself to be with you that I hardly hold here; a trouble for me is, that when I came away from New York last year I left part of myself behind, which keeps pulling and pulling. And so, whether you see or sense me, or not, I shall be there just the same—and will add to all that goes on, from all that I have gathered meantime, because of my going last year. From the last paragraphs in the 44 Screen ”, I got the clue—Sacrifice, and ever more sacrifice, and the will with which to make them—or, even more, to give oneself, completely. Indianapolis, Indiana. Secretary , Theosophical Society: l wish it were possible for me to attend the Convention next Saturday, but the infirmities of age are such in my case as to make it impossible. I trust there may be a good attendance and that you may have an enjoyable and profitable meeting. Yours sincerely and fraternally, Mahlon D. Butler. Dayton, Ohio. Secretary T. S.: It does not appear now that I shall be able to attend the Convention this year, much as I long to do so. Two years ago, in reply to a question I asked Mr. Johnston, he suggested that I endeavour to help the friends who came to me by giving them the Theosophic interpretation of the Bible: to the best of my understanding I did so. I cannot trace all the steps that followed his suggestion, but there are now about fifty persons meeting every Wednesday evening for study; it is not labelled Theosophy, though all know that I am a student of Theosophy, and I frequently read something from the Quarterly. I do not know how to teach, I assure them that the Teacher is within each one; that He is also within each experience and circumstance of life if they will become still enough in body and (lower) mind to discover Him. All eternity is needed in which to express the help I have received from the loyal workers in this mighty movement—this intelligent co-operation with the Masters in raising race- consciousness to higher levels: surely I ought to be willing and thankful for permission to clean up my own doorstep, with such over-shadowing Helpers to encourage and enlighten every sincere effort. Sincerest greetings to all. Leona T. Field. Toronto, Canada. To the Secretary T. S.: Once again I have to offer regrets for not attending the Convention. I fully expected to do so and was looking forward to the help and inspiration of which I cer¬ tainly stand in need, but duty will hold me here. A. J. Harris. 90 THE 0 S 0 PHICAL QUARTERLY Berlin, Germany. To the Members of the Theosophical Society in Convention Assembled: We send our hearty greetings to the members at the Annual Convention, and wish that this Convention may be a successful one and may give help to all who seek it. We are a circle of seven members-at-large, and say our best thanks for the help given us by the articles of the Quarterly of the last year. Yours fraternally, O. Ihrke. Trieste, Italy. To the Theosophical Society in Convention Assembled , New York: Dear Fellow Members, As every year, I beg to send you this year also the kindest greetings and wishes from myself and Mrs. Plisnier. As everywhere, here also has mankind closed his eyes to the truth of spiritual realities, and dragged down to materialization all religious sentiments. The cycle is dark and the workers are few. One is alone with his ideals, with no other comrades than his books. Perhaps the accomplishment is still very far, and we must hope and wait. May the Master give us the force and the never failing faith of patience. With best wishes and fraternal greetings, faithfully yours, Alberto Plisnier, Teresa Plisnier. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. To the Members of the Theosophical Society in Convention Assembled , New York: Dear Com¬ rades, Once again we come to present to you our most heartfelt greetings and wishes for the Great Day of the T. S., the only thing we are now permitted under Karma to contribute to your work. Notwithstanding we shall try to keep near to you in heart and mind at Con¬ vention day, hoping that some day in the future we too may be so happy as to share with you in the service of this day. Meanwhile we have to learn in silence and solitude to draw near the Altar to which all our aspirations, devotion and sacrifices are directed, and where we are sure to find, besides the Masters, all our comrades to feel never again in any sense distant from' them. May the Blessings of the Masters rest upon your work and bring us all a fresh and stronger impulse for never relaxing effort, courage and endurance to the very end. In brotherly love, Yours very sincerely, Elisabeth Schoch, Leo Schoch. To the Theosophical Society in Convention Assembled: We ask you on behalf of the Wilmers- dorfer Circle to kindly accept our heartiest greetings and sincerest wishes for a successful Convention. Congregating at Convention day we shall be united with you at this solemn hour. I * ’ s lndeed the ' fire from heaven” that shines upon us from the last Convention report kindling our hearts, and setting our wills aflame. • V? Un ,‘ ty ° f heart lmkin 8 us together manifests and expresses itself in a gladdening manner in those lectures and addresses which we are still studying. We consider ourselves highly favoured thus to be able to participate m the proceedings and the spirit of the Convention vroi)tVnf n Ti lght °l wl J“ h-emanatin S from the Lodge-we see manifested the life and growth of The Theosophical Society. This fills us with deep joy, and serves as a source of strength for our work here, which is based hel^oth^^ 1011 ° f thC that ° Ur fiFSt dUty C ° nSiStS in making ourselves fit to successfully T. S. ACTIVITIES 9i In this spirit we shall be with you heart gladdening warmth. and soul, looking out for the same brilliant light and Fraternally yours, Oskar Stoll, A. Friedewald. Oakland, California. Secretary T. S.: All good wishes and hearty greetings to members assembled at our next Convention. Yours very sincerely and fraternally, Jennie Belle Tuttle OCUMARE DEL FUY, VENEZUELA. To the Theosophical Society in Convention Assembled, New York: Dear Fellow-Members: With my fraternal greetings I send to you in this magnificent hour of your meeting the sorrow¬ ful notice of Mr. Mauricio de la Cueva’s recent death. This companion was an aged member of the Theosophical Society in this country, comrade of J. J. Benzo and Dominguez Acosta, dead long ago. Mr. Cueva was an indefatigable and sincere worker for the Cause, and his life was a living altruistic ideal. So his death has opened a broad voidness in our ranks and a great hurt in our hearts. Among his best known works, he was one of the founders of the ‘Venezuela’ Branch, whose important works are well known, and later of the Altagracia de Orituco Branch, and of a review entitled “Luz y Armonia”, organ of this Branch. There¬ fore, his entry into the Theosophical field is distinguished by thirty years of courageous labour. I sincerely wish that the Masters’ blessings will inspire your hearts in this solemn hour, during which I feel spiritually united to you. Fraternally yours, A. Valedon. Berlin-Schoneberg, Germany. To the Members of The Theosophical Society in Convention Assembled: Dear Comrades: With joy we take the opportunity of this year’s Convention to send to you all our heartiest good wishes and greetings. We are with you in heart and will in the common work, and pray for the Masters’ blessing, for fruitful work. Sincerely and fraternally yours, Richard Walther, Hellmuth Pinter, Otto Bethge. SCHRECKENSTEIN, CZECHO-SLOVAKIA. To the Treasurer T. S.:... . We are firmly convinced that the Theosophical Quarterly is contributing in a remarkable measure to fulfil the tasks and the purposes of the Theosophical Society and to carry out the intentions of the Great Lodge. To us foreign members it is the speaking trumpet of our revered guides, and by it we perceive the throbbing pulse of the movement. That obliges us to great thankfulness and to active sustentation which we can provide in the meanwhile only by pecuniary resources. To the Convention I wish from the depth of my heart a full success and the most abundant blessing. I tried already in my previous letter to intimate to you the deep feeling of a genuine happi¬ ness which the last Convention has excited in all of us who were meeting here at the same 92 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY time. Under that impression, which each one of us had, we passed the motion to create a fund to be enlarged by annual spontaneous donations, by which after a series of years we shall be able to delegate the worthiest member of our Branch to a Convention; considering, of course, the financial position of the aspirant. Besides that we have created an institution, a fund of spare money, by which also other members of the Branch shall be able to accompany that delegate, as every one of us will have a certain stock serving as a supplement to the travelling expenses. I suppose it is the longing of every member to participate at least once during his lifetime in a Convention of the Theosophical Society. . . . The letters from Oberst Knoff and from Mr. Box, with their inspiring descriptions of the Convention, printed in the “Screen”, July, 1927, supported our opinion, that it may be serviceable to keep ready the material means—in addition to the acquirement of the English language—and to assure thereby the outer necessaries. The most important irremissible conditions are rather of a spiritual nature, and to provide them we are praying to the Masters of Wisdom that they may enable us to acknowledge rightly the will and the intentions of the Lodge. With heartfelt greetings and best wishes, I remain, Faithfully and Gratefully yours, R. Jager, Treasurer T. S. Aussig Branch. Au Soir de la Pen see, by Georges Clemenceau; Librairie Plon, Paris, 1927. M. Clemenceau has illustrated Plutarch’s saying that “the study of pleasant and speculative learning, to an old man retiring from office, is a most suitable and becoming solace , but he has not guarded the fruits of his reflections for himself alone. At the age of eighty-seven, he has published a philosophical treatise in two large volumes containing nine hundred and fifty pages! He is incapable of passing in idle reverie this “ evening of his thought ”. It is quite impracticable to review the book in detail. There are passages on cosmogony, mythology, symbolism, the history of philosophy, the atomic theory, human and animal psychology, the problem of free-will versus determinism, the origin and nature of the Ego, etc., etc. The reader will search in vain for any sign of failing energies. Clemenceau has in fact raised a monument to the power of the human spirit. Physical age and fatigue, which are generally supposed to be obstacles, have been treated by him as opportunities for the exercise of his faculties. The mere act of writing such a book may thus be regarded as an inspiring affirmation of a will which does not surrender. Nevertheless, one turns the leaves of this work with a sense of pathos. Clemenceau, the man of vital action, speaks through the mask of a mind moulded long ago into the form of a narrow and dogmatic scientific materialism. Too often “the materialist’ eclipses the man”. The reader must content himself with oases of wisdom in a desert of ratiocination. If only the genius had thrown aside the mask and had spoken for itself! Clemenceau was an active anti-clerical during the painful struggle which culminated in the separation of Church and State in France. In the dust of the battle he seems to have confused the issues involved. In any event, he extends his justifiable contempt for priestcraft to include the whole of what is generally signified by the term, “religion’ . He makes a ten¬ tative exception in favour of primitive Buddhism, because he believes that this was a religion 41 without gods, without soul, and without prayer” (I, 376). Religion in itself signifies nothing for him but the cowardly instinct impelling us to turn aside “from the struggles of life, in order to fabricate for ourselves another world that is an artificial development of the beatitude of our inertia” (II, 465). These are hard words, but they at least provide religious people with an excuse for self-examination, so that they may discover for themselves how selfless and disinterested their “religion” really is. Clemenceau has a healthy and thorough-going loathing for cant and pretension, whenever he is able to recognize them, and he does not spare the theologians and the metaphysicians whose explanations of the Universe are too often only plays upon words. To their speculative dogmatism he opposes a positivistic view of existence, limiting ascertainable truth to the domain of scientific experiment. Unfortunately he falls into the error of so many “ popularizers ” of science, for he arbitrarily restricts the field of experiment to objective, material phenomena. This practically amounts to denying the importance and even the existence of the “consciousness aspect” of being, on the ground that science makes no study of it. One recalls the words of the Oxford satire: “What I know not is not knowledge.” However, this arid positivism is, indeed, only the deceptive vesture of an intense and heroic life. There are moments when the life shines through its mental mould so brightly that this 93 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 94 mould seems temporarily as if dissolved. A few quotations will be more revealing than any commentary. _ , . .. - . “Life is a chance to dare. ... In the universal war of the elements, a flash of enlighten- ment comes to us, and we experience our first sensations of an ineffable poem which it must be our duty to assimilate and to develop, in order that we may live ideally (I, 24). He contrasts the thinker (Vhomme peasant) and the dreamer ( I'homme revant), insisting upon our obligation to detach ourselves from the fear of the unknown and from the dread of effort and to awaken our latent powers by an ardent aspiration towards this same unknown, and by a courageous acceptance of all that is involved in what we already know. The thinker "undertakes the task of knowledge, as if eternity lay before him. . . . Before us, at every moment, the unknown retreats as we advance. . . . How many Gods who will have known only the pain of being born, will be worthy of humanity (I, 57 )- " • Master’, cried the disciple, ‘who is this God shining in majestic splendour whom I perceive beyond the clouds? Does he not seem to call me?’ And the Buddha replied, smiling: It is thyself, my son.’ ” (II, 493 )* q t How the Reformation Happened, by Hilaire Belloc; Robert McBride and Company; price S3 There is something more than irony in the title of this finely conceived and vigorously written book; for what accepted history calls the Reformation is, for Hilaire Belloc, nothing less than the Great Calamity, which rent and wounded the spiritual life of Christendom, gravely menacing what he holds to be the supreme treasure of mankind. Tolstoi said that one of the conditions of great writing is, that the writer should sincerely love or hate the people about whom he writes. There must be no Laodicean detachment. This condition, Hilaire Belloc fulfils to perfection; when he loves, he passionately adores, and when he hates, he violently detests; and he blazes with sincerest ardour in putting his feelings on record. Some students of Theosophy are in full agreement with him in holding that the spiritual life of Christendom is one of the great treasures of mankind, and these students are further in hearty agreement with him in holding that the spiritual life of France is to-day, has been for centuries, and may be for centuries to come, the hope of a future Christian civilization. They are sure to concur in his corollary that Germany has long been, and may long continue, the breeding ground of disruption and evil. Again, he firmly holds, and courageously affirms, that in addition to the opposition of human greed and egotism, we must take into account forces of evil outside our common humanity, forces of evil which showed their malignant hatred on Calvary, and which are active to-day. Here, once more, students of Theosophy would find themselves in full agreement with what is certain to be an unpopular thesis among our latter-day rationalists. Let us now consider points of disagreement. Hilaire Belloc holds that the Church of Rome is the plenary representative of the Faith, and that the essence of the Church dwells in two things: the Mass and the Papacy. These ideas are of course at complete variance with Theosophy, which would stress the spiritual force of the Saints as the source of renewal in Christendom, and affirm that a central authority must be sought far deeper. Hilaire Belloc, while full of the spiritual glory of the Church, has singularly little to say of the Saints; he is so little preoccupied with them, that he falls into a strange confusion, on page 33, between St. Catherine of Siena and St. Theresa, a confusion surprising in a devout Catholic, who must be familiar with the writings of both these noble women. But there is a deeper line of cleavage. Students of Theosophy could never concur in his view that the whole spiritual life of mankind is confined within the circle of any Church. A great Roman Catholic Archbishop once said that he hoped to meet Buddha and Plato in heaven. One would fain see Hilaire Belloc temper his feeling for "the heathen” by a like liberality. ^mtership'7°rf a 9 tis a'urml ZlTnoUced inle ctn T ‘ 5 ' 1 do not wish to be a drone in the Society. Mention Reports, and it appeals to me for the objects of the Society; acthrity ^maniferine tteatT'd* fT' y? Activity in forwarding oneself a part of the spirit and life-blood of the q eattl ‘ ude of the Societ y; activity in making ture, its heroes; and entering in,-by loviL that wh^T^I^ ^ P3St history ’ its litera - their lives. g that whlch ‘hey loved and for which they gave ning to the prUtUime^hayT b Jf .? rious members . from its begin- Of the Universe and the destiny of min L et the ntT l* C ° nCerni " g the ttszzr* if he put s dTh ?*"“ theTheos °««cal ment. He cannot read everything atonce but h ommended h V the Quarterly Book Depart- mend what to read first, fo^haTch^i de^ * * u86 > 6sa to Tom- previous intellectual training. In any event snm. T?* 0 ” the Student ' s temperament and Sooner or later the student ^ ° me readin £ ought to be done. g ent,y begin this arduou^" ^fore he can intelH- what older students have conceived Theosophy to be ^ ^ WSe t0 gain 801116 notion of ermmating a period of qualification, can confer activitv unnTT he ! sactlve - No ceremony, and the attainment of ever-deepening levels of activitv wh f T-' U IS a process of growth more perfect instrument in the hands of the Soul. ' " Ve t0 place a p rogressively T. S. become a more ^ 11°"' T “ membcr of the Often, we fear, to the bewilderment of the nlw memb I T? ° Ur 1,t6ratui 6 6 «^, and too runs straight through the labyrinth The Soul Tee l’ A t0 ‘ d that the road of duty Hfe. It .rranges the events of our Ly ifvel^KwlfT* US l ° m ° re abunda "‘ our duties of head, heart and hand we shall find « f i keep Wlde awake an d responsive to life of the Soul. Though we ma y seZ t^eZ a'u more de6pl >' **> the active have been gathered within the radius of the^ldge to hel T' ^ Sh ° U ' d reaIize that W6 sr that its strength - d ^ ShouldTuTke TbTm^oTdelTTh th^T" “ ‘ he M ° Vement from ttl6 begmnmg. Movement.'" 6 ° f th ° S6 y ° U haV6 0b ™ how ^ 6a " » yourself to work with them in the 95 96 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 3. Put into execution whatever directions may be given you. Thus acting, you will become to that extent “active." S. M. Answer. — I understand this question to apply to outer activity only, though of course there is the inner which is far the more important of the two. The list of ways in which a new member may “qualify ” is long, but one of the very first of these is for him to learn how to use his eyes, and what understanding he may possess,—to learn to give the most careful considera¬ tion to everything, great and small, which concerns his new theosophic life. Particularly should he take great care to notice how things are done by other members who have been in the Movement for many years. He should then try to apply these new methods which he has been observing and studying, to his own everyday tasks; thus he will gain a practical experience which will be of great value later on. He will also be wise to get rid of many of his preconceived notions as to what kind of work he would be able to do were he so fortunate as to be an “active member," for he is quite likely to find that that which (before he joined the T. S.) he thought himself fitted for, is in reality not his forte at all. Let him keep himself open and unbiased, and he may find that there are hitherto quite unexpected talents buried within him—all of them ways in which he may serve. The more open-minded a new member remains; the less he allows his outworn, personal opinions to blind him to the beauty and grandeur of the new life into which he has entered; the more intelligently he observes, losing no clue,—the sooner is he likely to attain to “active membership." T. D. Answer. —While outer works are important, it seems to me that the most important qualification for “active membership" in the T. S. is the proper attitude of mind. It is neces¬ sary to try sincerely to change the focus of one's attention from things of this world to things of the spirit; and if the effort be persistent, some measure of success will inevitably be attained. Moreover, it is necessary to study constantly. Study the articles in the Quarterly; study the books listed in the back of the Quarterly; study one's self; study others; study life. Study with the object of relating everything to one’s own conception of Theosophy, for the purpose of broadening and improving one’s understanding of Theosophy and of life. Only those shall know the doctrine who live the life. Therefore, the knowledge gained should diligently be applied to one’s daily life. It is futile to wait for full illumination. One should live the life according to the best that one knows now, and more light will be given. Of course, outer works must not be neglected; but it seems to me very easy to place too much emphasis on outer works, thereby giving insufficient attention to the really important thing, which is to seek the spiritual life, not selfishly for one’s own advantage, but because one can help humanity best by seeking the light. One cannot rescue others from drowning until one has learned to swim; and I think that as one endeavours to live the life, and in direct measure as one succeeds, the opportunity for outer works will be given. One should attend meetings regularly, and ask questions and join in the discussion when one feels that such questions or discussion will be helpful. Regular attendance is very helpful to one’s self, to other members, and to the success of the Theosophical Movement. R. W. A. Answer. —The new member can endeavour to find out what The Theosophical Society is and stands for, by the study of its principal aims and objects; the meaning, in relation to himself and to the world, of a nucleus of Universal Brotherhood, of the study of ancient and modem religions, philosophies and sciences, of the unexplained laws of nature, and the psychical powers latent in man, etc. This alone would be quite an activity. At the same time, if possible, he can attend the meetings and classes of the Society, prepared not only to listen with tolerance and interest to what is said there, but to think about it then and afterwards. He can also cultivate a feeling of sympathy and intelligent affection for the other members of the Society, who are painfully pursuing the same object. He can endeavour to observe in all the past and present phenomena of this world, the working out of what he understands of the principles of Theosophy. And if he try to put into practice at all times in his own consciousness and actions a complete devotion to these principles, he may still consider himself a drone, but no one else will. S. C. L. {To be continued .) STANDARD BOOKS SOPHY UNVEILED ' V0LS - I AND II. doth> , ine. The, Vols . I and i'i'and inV . WS ’ Glossary 1 “ “ °” e book ’ without sub i«t.ind« vitane.’ OF THE BLAVATSKY LODGE. . Silence _ .7.. : -cloth, , Volume I . . * 85 ' Ieather * Volume II .. volume iii...\\\\\’;;;. tters to Friends. .. .r oa ™ s > Abridgment of the Secret' Doctrine', .doth BHAGAVAD Gita .Treated, annotated; cloth,' f Wisdom. The I,mp Ieather - MISHADS... . ads, The, VoiuAie L .... *. pap f» 3E Kingdom, The . . ga Sutras. .V * *,V \.paper* 'Pug .Translated, annotated; cloth, jsr •' :;; •*«.' Devotional: Bhagavad Gita; Crest Jewel cVinrle* T nttore TL-i. IT_TT 1 , *V" a™,, „ m ,. ° f the Secret Doctrine; Isis Unveil^- UTmi _1__ ** to Theosophy; Transactions; Patanjali ; S Yo g TSutraT TalkSOn Rehglon; Th °°sophical G1os£i£ THE KNICKERBOCKER PRESS. NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. Founded by B. P. Blavatsky at Hew Vork In 1875 (HE Society does not pretend to be able to establish ■ fti once a universal brotherhood among: men, but 1 \ st ™r cs t0 «eate the nucleus of such a body. ISPP11 Sfu ,t!t rn , e j? ber ^ , be . lieve tfaat an acquaintance |Ugjgg| with the world s religions and philosophies will &5Z**l&t **?** of *«* brotherhood ladm«J wJiT ^ n s a fP* eci * t, on of the finer forces will still further emphasize the same idea, -n «s wholly unsectarian, with no creed, ~ “--“3 or impose j neither opinions of iu members, r others that was^adopted at the Conven- Americabyit's delegates and -» toward all students of *■ heosophical Societies wherever -----—- proclaims and avers its such P\ tso ™ and -l matters except those of , T „ WMMkJ*’ * nd ,hd ' To ““A »*«, <« of them also believe that of nature and man The organization i_ _ # dogma, nor personal authority Venfowe is it to be held responsible for the w who are expected to accord to the beliefs of tolerance which they desire for their own. 1 he following proclamation was adopted at ApM ' 1895 ' fraternal good wi» and kindly feeling toward all students of ThecKophy and members of Theoso~ # * ' n and however situated. It further hearty sympathy and err ‘ " organizations in all theosophlcal i government and administratioi respondence and "To all i__ feligious belief, who --VU(, SUI anuin auch knowledge of men and nature as shall te itceZl' ‘an,?? Ce T nt 0 « hc homan race ' ft set * “l t lte j lT Pi off , e , rs its services. Wltf ? aU eeligionsand religi, the * d£r ^ te L *° thc P««hcation of men' »e bettering of their ways, and it avows its i 1 S: 'l nt,f,c Series and individua Md “5°!^' “ ,5= wfll e be a griteful W for The Theosophical Quarterly Subscription price, $1.00 per annum; single copies 25 cents PuMfohed by The Theosophical Society at 64 Washington Mews, New York, N. Y. July; October; January; April Address all communications to P. O. Box 64 , Station O, New York M. Q.'S? Charing* Gra£°Road^ *>e sent to John Mr. E. H. Lincoln, 9 Beaconsfleld Road Low PpII V«9^ 2 » or *° whom al. back numbers may be obtain^. Annual JSft&JgS CONTENTS OF VOL. XXVI, NO. 2 October, 1928 NOTES AND COMMENTS PAGE FRAGMENTS. 97 RELIGIO MILITIS.’ . I0 5 THE HAKO: AN INDIAN RITE, PART I *°^ WAR MEMORIES. ' . 117 DANTE SKETCHES. 129 CHHANDOGYA UPANISHAD. 142 ALL THAT WE HAVE IS NOT OURS I4 ^ CONTEMPLATION AND MORALITY. 154 WORK. . 156 ON THE SCREEN OF TIME. 167 LETTERS TO students . 170 REVIEWS.. 186 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 189 - . 191 the theosophical society Universal Brotherhood^Hum^nity^witho 0 ^d't* t0 - f ° rm ^ nucIeus of a caste or colour. The ^ ^ CTeed ’ se *’ religions, philosophies and sciences and f v, J a t dy ° f ancicnt and modern Of such study; and the ° f ^ imp0rt — psychical powers latent in man! flamed laws of nature and the Ac. ted," 8eptemb » *- •» th. Port Office New York. N . Y.. uod„ , he Copyright, ,928, by The Theosophical Society OCTOBER, 1928 The Theosophical Society , as such , is not responsible for any opinion or declaration in this magazine , by whomsoever expressed , unless contained in an official document. I N relating the story of the Buddha’s discourse concerning penitential self-mortification, its fruit and its danger, reference was made to a period in the West when like penitential practices were intensively followed, the period of the monastic communities and the great solitaries in the Egyptian desert. It may be worth while to show the likeness of these self-mortifying exercises in the Egypt of the fourth century of our era to those of the Ganges valley in the Buddha’s day, and in particular that the fruits and dangers were the same in these two sacred lands. In that forceful and detailed record of the Egyptian solitaries which is called The Paradise of the Fathers , the author records an experience which he personally noted. There was a certain man in Scete, he says, whose name was Stephana, who had dwelt in the desert for twenty-nine years; his apparel was made of palm leaves, and he lived in such a strict self-denial, and per¬ sisted to such a degree in ascetic abstinence, that he never had the least inclination for the meats which are usually desired, and which are pleasant to the taste; and he greatly condemned those who, because of sickness, either ate cooked food or drank cream. Now the gift of healing had been given to him to such a degree that he could cast out devils by a word. And it came to pass that on one occasion a man in whom was an unclean spirit came to Scete, and wished to be healed, and when the monk saw that he was sorely vexed by the devil he made a prayer and healed him. So much for the fruit of abstinence and self-discipline. But there was danger also. For, says the narrator, this monk was rejected by Divine Providence because of his immeasurable arrogance and haughtiness, for he imagined himself to be more excellent in his life and works than the other fathers. First of all, he separated himself from the brotherhood, and then he went and became archimandrite in one of the monasteries of Alex¬ andria, “For,” he said in his pride, “am I to be in subjection to Macarius? 97 98 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY Are not my life and works better than his?” And this man arrived at such andT ° f , madneSS that he Went t0 the city - and ^ve himself up to gluttony d drunkenness and to the eating of more flesh than rational brings are 3 " d finaly he fel1 and settled down into the pit of unclean living s^oclf to S h S v T d6SlreS With ° Ut Shame ' and became a laughing¬ stock to all who knew him. But he excused himself, saying “The law was not made for the perfect.” The narrator goes on to say that strong IffoS mained 3 6 ^ tblS man and brin S him to repentance. But he re- n d R T n an , d ° bdurate ' and came a miserable death, men Id ^ K ° f ^'^ifying ascetics who sought praise of mentioned ^ MaCarius aIready ssr - - 1 Macarius “And ir • T’ W ®, are told ’ another well-known ancient said to should work for praise raSS than'thlfthey"^^^ d^spl^^for if alw^ constraineth those who love nrake to r f oespise it, tor it always ,„d spake, saying,-Whe«1£ • h i£r‘~ 2s - — y - s r^“ k ' B -r if "-rr-- - — even though it be thus nu ' ed ha 1 ? rephed that ^-mortification, mortification, in “““ b " k Sd '' lem to be considered now is to wliat end i t d bUt a means - The prob- purpose of self-mortification? What S * f means What is the true to "the praise of q “ Wl “' in the Buddha’s teaching Banyan logically asks, “In what wav q,v» a the summit and penetrate to the core?” 3 Then’heT Sel ^ or ‘ lfica tion reach a skilful reasoner, that he is a practical d; • : f h ® hows that he ,s more than a happy thing for me if the Master h^M^ f ° r 16 contmues - “It would be summit and should make it penetrate to the coTe^ Self ’ m0rtification t0 the strained by the restraint of the tourfolTwatch 61 ’ 0 ! ^ ^ WOrld> is re ‘ self-mortifying ascetic restrainpH h +t In what way, Banyan, is a First, B4.» such L SSrfninL ' Sf * °* ’ nor approves of the injuring of anv life - sec d V CaU f S n ° hfe to be injured, nor causes what is not given to be taken " ’ ° takeS not wbat is not given, «.« given: third, he S««t*ng ,£ what ii falsely,nornpprove, a „y talsespeec „ ; Ugg nor causes anyone to long for self-satisfaction, nor approves of any longing * ,? tWS Way> Banyan ’ an aSCet?c is -trained by tol such an at t r When> Banyan ’ the ascetic is thus drained, for himself g06S ° rWard ' he tUrnS n0t back t0 lower thin « s - He seeks out for himself a place of meditation, in the forest, at the root of some great tree among the mountains, in a glen or a cavern in the mountains, o/even n a P ace for the burning of bodies, or a dwelling in the woods, or simply a heap of straw in a clearing. Then, after he has gone forth to receive alms of rice in , ’ and has eaten w hat has been freely given, returning to his retreat htrf CS d hlS Se t m the P ° Siti0n ° f meditation ' bolding his body upright, with for theto mind fTn tent 0 ?/ eC ° lleCti0n - Ridd ing himself of covetous desire the things of the world, he dwells with heart free from covetous desire e purifies his thoughts of covetous desire; ridding himself of the sin of malevo- ence, he dwells with heart free from malevolence, seeking the welfare of all living beings, he purifies his thoughts of malevolence; ridding himself of sloth and torpor, he dwells free from sloth and torpor, seeing the fight riveted wth consciousness alert, he purifies his mind of malevolence; ridding himself of vanity and fretfulness, he dwells not inflated by vanity, with heart inwardly serene he purifies his thoughts of vanity and fretfulness; ridding himself of doubting, h. dwell, on the further shore beyond doubt, no longt “usk doubt',“g" 8 COnCermne What “ "* ht «"d fiood. he purifies his thought, of Through spiritual awakening he rids himself of these five obscurities which Tea tolff ,° f P T? r; hC dWdlS irradiatin « °" e ^rter of the wor d w J u so het n urth m Th T- r d „ S ° * ,S °u lhe S '“ nd *“*“• “ th. third " also the fourth. Thus he dwells, irradiating the whole world, upward down- ward, through and through, altogether, in all ways, with heart enkindled with and th lrr adiating the whole world, upward, downward, through he dwT g ’ al i°f he \ m aH WayS ’ With heart enk * ndled with compassion- he dwells, irradiating the whole world, upward, downward, through and through, altogether, in all ways, with heart enkindled with even-balanced serenity, abounding, magnanimous, free from enmity, free from ill will. What not^perfec'tccT^ 3 " an ^ ^ ^ ^ tHUS ’ ' S SUCh self - mortificati °n perfected, or is it “Of a surety, Sire, self-mortification such as this has reached the summit has penetrated to the inmost core!” ’ “Nay, not so, Banyan! Far from reaching the summit and penetrating to the inmost core, such self-mortification has but touched the skin, the outer bark.” That declaration is likely to astonish us as greatly as it astonished good Banyan. Is not the radiant love described the utmost possible fulfilment of the law of righteousness? Of what more can we conceive? We may anticipate the answer of the Buddha by asking a question: How is it possible for the aspirant, even after he has cleansed his heart of envy anger vacillation, sloth and unbelief, the “five obscurities,” even after he has torn out the root of egotism, even after he has made the complete sacrifice of IOO theosophical quarterly worldliness symbolized by dea^heart? 0 Vhe answer is, for him to create this s P lendo “ as a potentiality, already there. It is that he has no need to crea e ’ brougb t to the light when the the treasure of gold buried in the fie the heart , to be fully earth and stones are removed, it is t the true Light which revealed when false desires Light of the Logos itself, the lighteth every man that cometh 1 underlies and gives life to every universal spiritual consciousness unregenerate man that spiritual individual consciousness. buried under a multitude of mental, consciousness has been hi en the Light can no longer shine passional and psychic obscurities,^ of obscuri ties real life can through. With the remova tbe wbo i e system of self-denial, punfi- begin. It is not too much to y ha on his arde nt disciples had no cation t emtval of the heaped up obscurities which impede other aim than this, tn ermine religious teacher, that Light. And this is true ofev y g ^ h g eart &nd souli s0 that the The cleansing of the in ™; r , ’ d q{ the way> but its beginning; it is the Light may shine, is, therefore, not ^ ^ be inclined t0 ask with the ascetic BaT» “h« >,ter " £ STiot. fiery energy cleansing and part! fce othervjise altogether beyond hi. Light of the Logos. Th , Light is already there, is, power, is possible for the -»P* ^ “ ^ ords oI the Upanishad, indeed, the inner essence of his 1 • undivided All, he is as he is That. But, if one may use such a term for t ^ ^ ^ ^ ray His yet only a minute fragment of e bec ^ me one with all of that infinite tremendous destiny is, o e tb t be bas been 0 ne with that Life, Life, or. to speak more tt«ly. to nate *that he h^ ^ ^ ^ glem , through innumerable ages^ e expand until he knows himself one in his cleansed heart, h g limitless is the path before him. with the infinite Light. So grea , beginning of the true, divine Therefore this is indeed not the 1 ^ d ’" ,what should be the way. If the ardent disciP e have ^ consider . He is, step by step, to fruit of his journey. Let us ^ ^ M But the Logos is from enter into the Logos; «oUs P ^ transcen d Time, the great eternity. Therefore, as ’ b - b has disappeared, an evanescent illusion which divides Being in na P omniscient, but omni- *r*-r2 ’ZTZZSZJZXZ - •» science, for the All, a or in the regions beneath the in the heavens above, 01 ^ L Logos, he who ea t th rs into ihTdiXe consciousness, thereby enters into that perfect love whSh the Buddha has already described, a love abounding, magnanimous. " NOTES AND COMMENTS IOI «™d £&££&?*** mind - - Which are, not so much properties of the Lo^' 7 ° mniscience and love, come back to the dialogue between the Masted and thT^ 1 ? 7 ^ S ° W6 Banyan had affirmed that tLo •„ and the ascetic Banyan. very perfection and consummati^TfeT °* 7 heart by l0Ve Was the summit, penetrating to the inmost core LTh!r^,?' reachin e to the far from penetrating to the core this ill B he Buddha had replied that, the outer bark. Recovering from his' Um, " atl0n only touched the skin, Plexing, yet promising so much more tT f at a Statement so per- logical perseverance: ’ Banyan thereupon asked, with fine penetrate^to ThfcoS’ R wouH bfa ’ reach «- summit and should bring my self-mortification to the f ° r me ’ lf the M aster trate to the core!” th summit . and should make it pene- restraint of the fourfold'watch ^nd^"’ U ’ e a f Cet ' C restrains himself by the lower things. Establishinglo ’ hTmseH ' 7 ** ^ ^ t0 irradiates the world with heart enkind eH T, ^ f ° T med >tation, he memory many a dwelling of his in by-gone'tmes^that 711 ? 6 "^" ^ t0 birth, or two births, or three births nr f l T h * t0 say ’ one former or twenty births, or thirty births^o’r fortv^Tf 5 ’ blTths ’ ° T ten births - births, or a thousand births or a hundred blrths ’ or a hund red of a world period, many evdutionsT ” ^ ^ evolutions of a world period, so as ti sav Tly^'^’ invo]ut »ons and such a family, of such a colour, with such a liver/ 7 ° f SUCh a name> of joys and sorrows, completing such a span of f n ’ ex P e nencing certain manifest in such a place. There I was of i e P artln g thence, I became such a colour, with such a livdLod e " nam6 ' ° f such a of completing such a life span. Departin^ Pe ” enc,ng certain i°y s and sorrows, thus he remembers many a dwelling of his hTh*’ 1 manifest here;' and particulars. g n by ' gone tlm es, with all details " 11 ^ lh “' “ «* ^^-mortification p„- ‘" h “ - — .he ‘, he • 0 ™ i, “ d P^«»r the bark.” mortification has only reached the fibre beneath penetrate^to th/core^^t^muld^e a^apo/th ' 03 ^ 011 ^ the « and bring my self-mortificationTthe summit d i ^ ^ MaSter should to the core!” the SUmmit ' and sb ould make it penetrate restSrS^^ 102 THE0S0PHICAL QUARTERLY things. Establishing for himself a quiet refuge for meditation, he irradiates the world with heart enkindled with love. Thereafter he calls to memory many a dwelling of his in by-gone times, one birth, two, three, up to a hundred thousand births, with all details and particulars. So with divine vision, pure, surpassing that of the sons of men, he sees beings departing and coming into manifestation, debased or excellent, fair or foul, righteous or evil; he sees these beings faring according to their works, so as to say, ‘ These personages, of a truth, persisting in evil deeds, persisting in evil words, persisting in evil thoughts, speaking ill of the noble, holding lying opinions, are incurring the fruit of lying opinions. They, separated from the body after death, have fallen into misery, suffering, retribution, punishment. But, on the other hand, these personages, persisting in good deeds, persisting in good words, persisting in good thoughts, speaking well of the noble, holding true views, are enjoying the fruit of true views. They, separated from the body after death, have entered into a realm of happy manifestation.’ Thus, with divine vision, pure, surpassing that of the sons of men, he sees beings departing and coming into manifestation, debased or excellent, fair or foul, righteous or evil; he sees these beings faring according to their works. “What think you, Banyan? If this be thus, is such self-mortification per¬ fected, or is it not perfected?” “Of a surety, Sire, self-mortification such as this has reached the summit, has penetrated to the inmost core!” “Truly so, Banyan! Such self-mortification has reached the summit and has penetrated to the inmost core. So, Banyan, when you said to me in the beginning, ‘What, worthy Master, is the Law of Righteousness which the Master teaches to his adherents, trained in which the Master’s adherents win serenity, recognizing this Law as the firm foundation of their spiritual life ? ’— this, Banyan, is the higher and more excellent discipline which I give to my adherents, through which my adherents are established in serenity, recog¬ nizing it as the firm foundation of their spiritual life.” So far, all has gone well with the Master and his earnest hearer, Banyan, who, because of his candid spirit and willing heart, has gained the great boon which at the outset was refused. But what of the others? What of the householder Bond, and the obstreperous pilgrims? Have they been forgotten? In the answer, we shall see the happy humour and the perfect skill of the recorders of old time, who so faithfully preserved these discourses. For the record goes on to say that, when this had been said, the pilgrims burst forth in an uproar and a mighty noise, saying, “We are thus brought to naught, with our preceptors, for we know nothing better and higher than what they have taught us!” Meanwhile, the householder Bond had been thinking, “Even though these pilgrims hold other principles, yet they are listening to what the Master says, they are giving heed to what they hear, they are entering into a better under¬ standing.” So he spoke to the pilgrim Banyan: Did you not say to me, good Banyan, ‘Go to, householder! Knowest NOTES AND COMMENTS 103 thou with whom th^ ascetic Gotama confers? With whom does he hold converse? With whom does he clarify his understanding? The under¬ standing of the ascetic Gotama is injured by this habit of solitude, the ascetic Gotama does not know how to conduct a meeting, he cannot carry on a debate, he is really not in the current of things. Your ascetic Gotama, with his habit of solitude, his ignorance of meetings and debates, his limited outlook, is like a cow going round in circles! Look you, householder, if the ascetic Gotama should come to this assembly, we should shut him up with a single question, we should roll him along like an empty jar!’ Now, therefore, that the excellent Master has come, he who is perfectly awakened, a perfect Buddha, do you show that he is ignorant of meetings, that he is like a cow going round in circles, do you shut him up with a single question, and roll him along like an empty water-jar!” Surely a situation dramatically conceived! Are we to hold that the house¬ holder Bond, for all his virtues, has fallen short of perfect tact? Or, really resentful of Banyan’s peppery phrase, is the householder Bond seizing the op¬ portunity to avenge himself? The venerable commentator, Buddha Ghosa, sug¬ gests a third explanation, which does credit to his resourceful heart: the house¬ holder Bond is really inspired by the most excellent motives; he has brought the ticklish matter up in order to give Banyan a chance to repent, to confess and be forgiven. The recorder says that, when the householder Bond had thus spoken, the pilgrim Banyan was speechless, irritated, with drooping shoulders, chap-fallen, his mind full of confusion. Every word of this vivid description we can readily believe. The recorder does not say so, but pilgrim Banyan was in fact rolled along like an empty water-jar. The story goes serenely forward: So when the Master saw that the pilgrim Banyan was speechless, irritated, with drooping shoulders, chap-fallen, his mind full of confusion, he spoke thus to the pilgrim Banyan: “Is it true, Banyan, that this was spoken by you?” “It is true, Sire, that this was spoken by me, like an idiot, like a fool, like a wrong-doer!” “Then what think you, Banyan? Have you heard pilgrims who were old and full of years saying, ‘Those who were Arhats in the far distant past, perfect Buddhas, these Masters came together in such assemblies, they raised their voices, boisterous and noisy, relating many kinds of common tales, such, for example, as talk of kings, talk of robbers, talk of ministers, talk of women and men and heroes, talk of the street and of the village well, all kinds of stories, traditions of lands and oceans, discussions of being and non-being, like you and these preceptors a little while ago?’ Or, on the con¬ trary, did they say that the Masters of the far distant past sought rather the forest and the verges of the woods, making for themselves refuges there, where there is little tumult, little noise, where breezes blow through the solitudes concealed from the sons of men, in refuges fitted for meditation, even as I do now?” 104 THE0S0PHICAL QUARTERLY Sire, I have heard pilgrims who were old and full r,f who were Arhats in the far distant 7 f L° f years sa y in 2. ‘Those did not come together in such assemblies perfe ^ Buddhas : these Masters boisterous and noisy, relating many kinds of” 01 " ' tbey raise their voices, that the Masters o> the far dTstant ”7 t T", taleS '’ But the y said verges of the woods, making for themselves f ^ the f ° rest and *he tumult, little noise, where breezes blow thrrT wu ther6 ’ where there is little the sons of men, in refuges fitted fo meditatf^ ^ S ° htudes concea >ed from “Though you are an intell l 6Ven as y° u - Master.” not say, ‘The Master is a Buddha teaching 3 the”’ ^"i ° f yearS ’ y ° U did Master is self-ruled, teaching the Vivhter, & 7 '® hteous Iaw of wisdom, the ^ serene, teaching the ri g Zous la7oA 7* °i SeIf ' mas ^y. the Master ocean of delusion and teaches the righTT”^’ th ® MaSter has crossed the over, M, !te r has «t W «d suXf N ^“ ]*” «»«* -y cross "hereby others may attain Nirvana “ ' Kach “ **» righteous law the h * d «-• th. pilgrim Banyan J* , d d ressed doer, so tb^tTiZ^^’ot'Sc Maito' “JJ a < “l a wrong- ^ that a transgression ove,^ T ”*■ Bat as you this is the rule of the noble one that hJ Li ccept y° ur confession. For acknowledges and confesses it, making amend^th*^" by & trans g ressi on, over that fault. g amends - thereby gains the mastery without guile and fri f^om ^lusbn^u ^ h! 0130 C ° me t0 me ’ one who is show him the law of righteousness So nmcU “ ' lfe ‘ 1 wiI1 teach him and recognizing as the most excellent spiritual ? “. ha$ been tau S h t, and doctnne and discipline for whose sakTZ Way and the supreme goa the household life to the homelesslfe t ^l attain to^ ^ f ° rth *£ in seven years. But not to speak of seven vea 7' ^ ful1 reali ^ a tion he h^ be taught> he win atta . n si ~ ; Banyan, if he practise as three m two, in a single year- nay even 7 “ five years - in four, in - « i„ two, i„ £ uroutht—: SgSl* '^ * ' V V ‘i I fragments H ope, Faith, Knowledge,-this is the occult trilogy; Charity being the aura surrounding them,-the only atmosphere in which they can .. , , gr ° W - Hope 18 the beginner's stage; he must create and maintain it th 7 ° f hlS Wil1 ’ USing h ' S ima g> nat ion to strengthen and expand of th7 nnglng mt ° Pky the tw °fold aspect of Creative Buddhi. By means this continued practice he will rise to the stage of Faith, a firmer serener flame orwrch 1 ™^' 6 “ COnVerted aspiration, the upward flame of whuih consumes the dross of doubt and heaviness, as well as the fear Thllponllo”;'d WWle ^ ki ” dleSint ° HfetHed0m,ant Wgher con ~es, hereupon Knowledge is attained, and, farther still, Wisdom, which is the ynthesis of the three. Create then thy hope: build thy fir of he owe of sa fi Sh th6e fUd en ° Ugh - C °“' -sume; and as theflles own ashes 6 ButkTT* *° ^7 ^ them ’ phoenix - like from thine thv fir 7, aUra Charfty ab ° Ut thee ' f0r without that oxvgen on the ° f that -—- z- Aye dream dreams, beautiful ones: they cannot be too many nor too beautiful if only thou givest thy life to making them come true. For all that t e imagination of man can picture, and the will of man create 7s b^he CtReaSr ^ imm ° rtal SPle " dOUr in the SPiritUal WOTld Make thy mind and heart that placid mirror in which these glories can be of EteilT 11 1 h6aVenly Hght fiH ^ SPaC6S ab ° Ut th6e> and the atm ° Sphere of Eternal Beauty penetrate the blackness of the lower world. For these pure^tions t0 tH ° U mUSt be trUe; f ° r them to be clear > ^ou must be To gain them, thou must hope for them, look for them; to keep them and increase them, thou must believe in them, have unshaken faith. To make them - and7 S ^T"”' ^ ^ “* ° therS ’ th ° U must ^rstand mu t 'h 7T rVe m Undying consciousnes s, to incarnate them, thou ust be encircled and engulfed in one uprushing flame of love. Cave. 105 4 RELIGIO MILITIS tlJ, h h l ed he . me ' a ' ld sa < This is the condition of the battle which man that is born upon the earth shall fight; that if he be overcome, he shall suffer as thou hast satd: but if he get the victory, he shall receive the thing that I say. II Esdras, vii, 57 , 58 . haS , fr T. ently b6en Called t0 the de epened religious note il , h t bas mar j ked the post-war literature of France, but there have been fewer indications that, even beneath the surface, the same causes Wa'r ha°d for Enrff /^ 0 ^ Same end ’~ thou g h - * they were not, the War had, for England, been waged m vain. Nevertheless, some such signs there are, and one of them, a recent book* that lends its title to this article rtr h r SOnal e * P * rience and strikes so high a * d true a note, as would tZ w ,Tw CanCe ln the llterature of an y time or people; for its author led by he \\ orld W ar to re-enter the soldier’s path, found there the verification of the SJ f e f at “ ° f the SOldier ’ S faith ’~ the House of Death becoXg for m as for Nachiketas, a hall of initiation into the Way of Life. It is such a book as we have long hoped some English soldier would write, setting the proven facts of his own and his fellows’ experience against the deluded materi alisrn and sentimental pacifism into which the politicians of his country have reactecl, and which have stained both their public policies and speech Could relieve, as the author of this book seems to wish us to believe that he speaks not only for himself but for his generation reflectinc t e h^lH tl mmmm mmmss reiterates bring home to everv man “ti th ’. and the ancient teachings it fool’s or sluggardsiradjleTv JlTT 8 ° f Ws Hfe ’’ that "o youngMt'mii^take^hfs side 0 !!^^''^^ * 1 ^ 6 ^ 6 The University Press. Glasgot.” C^rks ^nb^e^Sont New Ybrk/r^s/j™"' 5, * PriVate ° f Draeoons - I 06 RELIGIO MILITIS 107 that prostit^itenam^anTth^T ^ perversions and counterfeits must recognize within th ° Ugh the disciple of Theosophy ^ ,0 S“:‘ s " Z«zf’- , e L : sh \ ,nd Trnth « most at home. Here his native ^ 6 rel . lgl0n the soldier that he is and in the l«rin "rj; ofTL d .S'; ” e fa “ d « unquestioning loyalties diseinli a i j W * Cb 1S tbe soldier s calling, in its truths lived which all religions t^ h ° bedlence and utter self-giving, he finds if he speak of 1 aU SS. the , ^ theSe trUthS the soldier speak s- ence; L thos who Hve the life Z offtTd aUth ° rity ° f P ™ 1 eXperi - or of man, founded upo^ Let or faty * d ° Ctnne ' * is ° f God the oldest two of «fis Idenfgroup of InLf^^t Upanishads ~ said to be the Mystery-teaching of he Path W wl f SCnptures ~^ recorded that with the Eternal was communicate ^ ^ lead ^ men to liberation and union to priests who knew it noT b™ by the Ra i put ki ^'~ the field of battle that KrthL ( m T*°" herita £ e * ^as. It was on three days “a pure guest” in thThT^ and ]t Was when he abod e rejected ”store of SeSants and , ° eath ’ that Nachiketa s. having and vestures”, learned the secret of ‘’‘theC^ ^ girh and robes SstSS;s: f tssz sentimental humanitarianism and mateLlp’good^worS’” whole course of religious historv tw P f P ks • Throughout the » d wamo/have’bewi^divorce^ e w**Mn V u^e e tfie , ^’ 0nS pr ' est actualize and to revivify the teachings of tl,c L u th Ing need to the warrior’s direct experience Thf, by ren6Wed revelation of ’*'*• ev “ » Wk » of th. Warrior; and th, .a,Ho, alo„,.”at s reveal them to others, and resolve the P enen ced its truths, can the mind confronts them. So Jesus answers N codemus- Art thou “ ^ m Israel and knowest not these tirirrc 5 it- -i mus ' Art thou a master r .h .ha, w, do ^^5rL^ar^“ y r oth ? We through al, „,,a p h ysi oa, sp,o„„, io „ i„ , ppral lo di , "” pe „^ “* io8 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY It is something of this service that Mr. Hopkinson renders us, and the heart of the doctrine which he sets forth, in terms of his own life and thought, is in truth the ancient Mystery-teaching of the Path, which the western world had all but lost before the Great War blasted wide its neglected gates. Again and again, as we read his pages, our thought reverts to that profoundly mystical discourse with Nicodemus, in which Christ, revealing the meaning of his own life as Avatar, reveals equally the cosmic descent of Spirit into matter and the Path of Chelaship. Its significance has been largely missed in modem theology, because taken as applying only to Jesus himself; but the whole con¬ text shows that the purport of his argument was that what was true of him must become true of all who would follow him and enter into eternal life From servants, they must become “Sons” or Chelas; and with that new irth, begotten of the Father”, the responsibilities of their spiritual lineage ecome theirs m a new noblesse oblige. They are sent into the world, even as Christ was sent into the world, to save it from itself, as the agent of the a ler s ove, and in obedience to the law—on which all aristocracy rests— that the higher must give itself in battle for the lower. To become a “ Son ” or Chela, is to be admitted into the spiritual hierarchy of knighthood, to be- come a soldier and to enter into war. A f “ a " d ag f in ' to °- we are reminded of the Bhagavad Gita , and of Death’s words to Nachiketasm the Katha Upanishad. Though our author makes no n ,ot C eVf feren r t0 the u Indlan scriptures - Passage after passage could be q oted from them paralleling and summarizing his thought. “The better is r ys ng ' ^ho^d 8 r th v hing: these tw ° a — ££££ m uY ’ ’ , ’ mdeed ’ P onde ™g over dear and dearly loved desires Nachiketas, hast passed them by; not this flowery way of wealth hast thou accepted, in which sink many of the sons of men. . . . That Seer is not born nor dies, nor does He proceed from aught, nor has any become He. Unborn’ eternal immemoml, the Ancient is not slain when the body is slain If the de a r y stLdnot- t He slav H ’ m, l lf the . slain . thinks of Him as slain, both these un¬ derstand not, He slays not, nor is slam. ... The children of men eo after ou ward desires; they go to the widespread net of Death. Therefore the man^nt th neT n0t that Which is Permanent among imper- manent things. . . Not, verily, by speech, or bv thought, or by the eves could J be kno rh * ^ apprehended of him who realizes its being; how could it be known otherwise? . . . When all the desires that dwell in his ah the knits Sth imm ° rtal &nd enters the Eternal - When all the knots of the heart are untied, the mortal becomes immortal - so far eoes the teaching handed down.” The way to the Gates of Gold leads ihrough t he Temptations m the Wilderness. trough the We would not have it supposed, however, that we ourselves agree or believe t other students of Theosophy will agree, with all of Mr. Hopkinson’s con chis' 0 ^ His words have the profound interest and significanSTthaiAttach '° e ! rat ; hand S P lntual ex P er ience and honest thought upon it. Of the gen^ne ness of that experience and the truth of that which ft revealed, we have no f Z 5 > ■ i m RELIGIO MILITIS there are times when ] verified, than from the t j of modern evolut j Q belon ^ to "a generat and which itself has read The Gol is easv tn T k ’ and Ieaves the e . -=3Li sacrifice of telling us the truths^thdrown ■ •..?: n s ° o neS m Uld kn0W better tha " irs; and that our 7 ° f its in his opening * ■east shadow of doubt; but in°th^ Vhat , h !, haS himseIf v ™ the misleading simplifications not have us forget th Origin of Species , ; ^ here is largely beside untouched. It_ and make allowance make the r f?reat such sacrifice i~ Movement who have he fleetin & sensations ofZ^f 7 them'Sl2y d f|,‘“ l y ,en tho “ who ' , WWch Non ■refore ,“!r" that ,here » I t™. IhZZSjT; m,h the ^ 0' Still small voice, but is rauS t?’|, declare t men need no longer strive to Iove°tk“ ^ ngenious change in our indi, t • , their ne to all without any self SyStem Wi iy still be overbearing selfish^ 0 " ° Ur Part X y«. warn sba a sure shield for men a«,i„ J Z " LeagU< IIO THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY mocking sunshine of Gallipoli, or through the cold mists of the North Sea we saw the vision, lacking which the people perish. If it be true that this age may regain the lost principle of aristocracy, which more than once in the past has saved mankind from despair of the future . . it is well that we should see clearly wherein that spirit lies Ihe failure of democracy has borne witness to the fact that the well-being of the many can be secured only by the self-sacrifice of the few. to Jrite ^ th ” t RellgIon of the Soldier concerning which it is my purpose The soldier’s right to his work and not to its fruits; the putting away of personal desire and the untying of “the knots of the heart”; the refusal of the flowery way of wealth, in which sink many of the sons of men”- the recognition of the aristocratic principle of noblesse oblige; and the steadfast insistence upon conforming action to vision, the living of the life that the in°the n a e ^ ^ 7 "“^ f «"damentals of the spiritual life are set out the ho L °Tt S n k° °k? • ’ and the ' r a PP lication traced through the body of the book. It will be of interest to readers of the Quarterly to note that -I t 611 Stan<3 UP °" thC SamC unchan £* n K truths of the soldier’s faith, his views upon many of the changing affairs of men-upon democracy and mob-psychology, upon economics and political theories- are the same m essence as those to which Theosophy leads, and which have been continu¬ ously reflected in this journal through the pages of “On the Screen of Time” Ue cannot deal with these chapters here, much though we should like to do so but must confine ourselves to what he has to say upon the religious outlook the wafa^rT L n 'L an K t 0 u th L C6ntral reIigious ex Penence that came to him in the war, and which is both the foundation and the verification of his philosophy He accepts literally the teaching of Christ as recorded in the Gosoels- and displays the only mean, .hereby „e may attain that true mysUefsm Ihlh ButTAhe'Xrh 136 * Van " 1Ce Whh the P hiIoso P h y °f Christianity.” sSSSSSs== flatter and fawn upon the political party which holds that hi h ZF Z***- t0 than to give, and better still by n a chapter whose title confesses its mockery, he considers orthodox theol- RELIGIO MILITIS m ogy and the hypotheses of physical science, showing by both that “the con- ceptions of the unchanging must themselves be subject to change.” To the belittling anthropomorphic conceptions of Deity he contrasts the geometry of the modern Relativity Theory, which would give to any four-dimensional being such power over time and space as was once ascribed only to the heavenly host. But the philosophic scheme which Mr. Hopkinson finds closest to his own thought, is, he tells us, “ a dualism well-nigh Manichaan”. “Nor in this" he continues, “should our critics be too ready with their censure. For, as in the early days of our era soldiers brought back to the imperial city a dualistic religion which had a deep effect upon the doctrine and practice of the church so also do we but carry on the tradition when, returning from the wars, we ask that churchmen should openly recognize the essential dualism implied in the Gospels, and to an even greater degree in Pauline Christianity.” It is the cult of Mithras to which he refers—that derivative of the ancient ystery-teEiching of the Warrior’s Path which gave itself to the soldiers of the Roman Empire before it passed from the knowledge of men. Its scrip¬ tures have not survived, or have not yet been “found”, so that we know it only through fragmentary accounts and allusions; but there is ground for e leving, as does our author, that it had a profound effect upon the thought of the early Christian church. In Isis Unveiled it is suggested that the seven seals’’-which are described in the fifth and sixth chapters of Revela¬ tion as having been opened in order by “the Lion of Judah”, who was worthy because he had prevailed and been slain—had reference to the seven rules or mysteries which were delivered to the “newly-born” after he had passed through the baptism of blood in the Mithraic ceremony of initiation- and it is noted how like are the words used in St. Paul’s account of the baptism of Christ, Thou art my Son, to-day have I begotten thee }} (Heb. v, 5 ), to those reputed to have been used by Maxime, the Ephesian, in initiating’ the Em- £l r 0 r J uh , a Y n , t0 Mithraism: “By this blood, I wash thee from thy sins. The Word of the Highest has entered unto thee, and His Spirit henceforth Will rest upon the newly-born, the now-begotten of the Highest God Thou art the son of Mithra.” To Mithraism, too, has been ascribed the code °I J^alry. and our author believes that its spirit “reappears in the spirit of the Military Orders when these were in their prime”. This is a view which may easily be accepted by students of Theosophy who have seen how, with each new outgiving of spiritual life and truth from the great Lodge, the old truths—to the extent that men have preserved them as true are gathered up and drawn into the central current of the new teaching Every Avatar comes, not to abrogate, but to fulfil “the law and the prophets” ' and not of one land or time only, but of all. The spiritual rank of Christ’s life on earth is testified to as clearly in the Upanishads as in the Hebrew books, and he fulfilled the “law” of the one as of the other. The significance of his birth place—the meeting point of the thought of Egypt, India and Greece—has often been noted. Hebraic legalism was too narrow a lense through which to see the full breadth and depth of the truths he lived and 112 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY taught. As he drew anew from that one source of Truth which is the foun¬ tain head of all religions, so in that “living water” was whatever lived in other faiths. Very little of it could be understood by his immediate followers; and not being understood could not well have been recorded. Nevertheless that which was his, found its way to him and to the tradition of his doctrine; sometimes through strange channels, and more often than not, only to be rejected by the councils of the church which bore his name; yet having made contact, the effect of the contact remained. It is in terms of the Mithraic beliefs that Mr. Hopkinson gives us the sharp¬ est outline of his own view of life and of the soldier’s faith; and it is these also which he uses to interpret, in its universal significance, that transfer of the sense of self-identification from the flesh to the spirit which may be accom¬ plished when the limits of the flesh are overpassed, and which he himself experienced in the extremity of battle as an initiation into the world of the Immortal. What he says here is first-hand testimony to the reality of a law of life which, though verified by soldiers in every age and by all who tread that stage of the Path into which the Temptations in the Wilderness admit has ever been doubted and rejected by the world. We quote from pages that we should be glad to quote in full. Moreover it [Mithraism] solved for the soldier the hard problem raised by the command that a man shall turn his other cheek to the smiter. For its adherents showed that such an instruction could be obeyed to the full yet that no man need turn his own cheek to him who smote some other person. The soldier confesses that he is bound to forgive unto seventy times seven times the brother who has offended him, but can see no reason why he should forgive even once the brother whose trespass against others is unrequited. Herein, as I believe, we find the whole justification of war. For by wounds received in battle the offence against others is converted to an offence against the soldier himself, and that which was without pardon becomes that for which forgiveness must be freely granted. This is the message of Mithras filling a mans mind with happiness when his mangled body lies bleeding on the clay of Flanders. ... “But it is more especially of the dualism of Mithraism that I would write For it would appear to me that the scientists of the nineteenth century con¬ firmed to a most remarkable degree the ancient belief in a contest waged between moral beings and a non-moral cosmic process. So that for us the warfare of Ormazd and Ahriman is no mere fable, but a very present reality I make claim for my generation that it was the first to perceive clearly that t"o men ' 5 *** t0 keep the gate of P ro gress *** closed h -Z , P " the0ry ’. or one m ' 2 ht sa y without falsehood the fact, of biological evolution was misinterpreted by our forebears in a surprising manner when they sang the praises of a process whereby men must of necessity become better and better, and of a change which, with almost inconceivable rashness ey called progress. It is indeed strange to us that they should have been betrayed so manifest error as that of supposing .tari the tatest ,o RELIGIO MILITIS relation.*" * ** existence must be the fittest in any other rising / nd ebbing tides of material evolution are indicated, and the same lesson drawn from them as in Through the Gates of Gold. “From that those °h ° m n ever ' astlng re - birth of worlds there is,’then, no escape for those who cowardly submit themselves to the cosmic process, nor, fighting in def It ? defymg tke hghtning ' seek to con trol an environment which Thev are h ' °“ Part t0 d ° S °’ is Strong to «mtrol them. morJ p a t k’ r 6y t t 6get ’ f they di6 ’ and their place know eth them no see but a d t t U H r u ° f mat6rial thingS and turnin 8 with it, they see but a distorted image of the truth which does not move, and is to be seen dearly only by those who can free themselves from that endless rotation and immoS g‘S, “ ■' * b “* «“ voiced of ,he “ This stepping aside from the material into the spiritual is not to be achieved the lihp°If W1 1 f^i 6 but tbe victor y °f man over his environment and the liberation of the soul from the wheel of material things are matters which come w.thm ,„e direct experience ,„e soldier, who, therefor” lils t shadowy likeness of the truth. Even I am not entirely lacking in this exoeri ence for I well remember a day early in the war, when the enemy conceived hefd h ]° P ° S T himSdf ° f tHat Part ° f the trenches b ^ore Ypres held by my squadron. For some hours he turned upon us the whole available snX and S d f erl d S ’ b ° th ***** Hght ’ S ° that the sun was darkened by smoke and dust, and we moved as in a dim twilight breathing air such as might hang above the sulphurous lake of hell. . . . What my companions ordeal But to m^f ? **** * ^ that none failed in tb at fiery rde a l But to me those few hours were full reward for all the weary years of waiting and of preparation. The faith long held through all discouragement was justified, and at length I knew clearly that man is master of his universe heconf' \ T ^ t0 yidd t0 the fearful environment so that he becomes but a poor whimpering animal almost too mean to be worthy of the regard of death, or to rise above the material world around him capita o! hi! own soul, and thereby lord of the whole creation. At such times a man walk, with Heroes as it were with equals, contemplating all time and all existence understanding all knowledge and all mysteries. For the moment he is meek nd inherits the earth for the moment he is pure in heart and sees God. This dis anA t kTI Ilth r thC Unconc l ue rable leads us, not in some far distant future, but here and now. Death has no sting, the grave no victory for those who with Mithras the Comrade learn thus to subdue Ahriman For Ahriman is none other, as I believe, than that cosmic process, which rk, predestined, hopeless, and without compassion, enslaves all save him who, enlisting himself in the shining army of Ormazd, takes up the shield of faith the sword of the spirit, and the helmet of salvation, wrestling not stgamst flesh and blood, but against the ruler of the darkness of this worid ” There follows a passage of profound truth, but one of whose full connotations THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 114 MiS the C™^ 0117 "S ‘' But there ca » be *» Mediator bring us wisdom from blvond tT Slde ,« nIess a ^o Mithras the generation are assured of this that no metr T We of the present mpart of this material uniTTand IZ fZu ° f aVail excep ‘ he be it- Were such a statement to be maH that greater universe beyond should read in it unhesitatingly his reTTiti 7 of Theosophy, we this, his recognition of the existence o/T ^ ° f T 0Wn Master - and, from the dependence of the spiritual life of ma J L ° dge ° f Masters and of inner aid Just what Mr. Hoplcinson means bvIhiT the ' r teaChing 3nd their as we said, but we have here a clear TT,*.? P , assage we do not know, for the existence of the spiritual hierarchy T theoretical necessity inan and the Supreme. £ e return To ^ the gap between closing sentences of the chapter. ' H Upon the same theme in the Sb ° t ^^®^on^erors'of l Ahriman r cOTisciousi H? *““■**. that men will, defeating a cosmic process whose enH • TTT 2 thlS universe to their is desire, making the world completely sublet death , because its moving spirit evil m it are but the measure of the Tod an!i T that the good and believe, is the true mysticism tfic ,1 d a ” d ^ ln themselves. This as I of heaven, to be attained only bTsuchTTTVT^TT god>the kingdom St ssis? ~" wsrstsr s bu ‘ higher than himself—holding that “ the a Up ,°" the mediati °n of beings Proof o„o„ el , the » tre . ra ^' e ™ Wh t ' Ch ? » can be no meaning or purpose in our existen/ei" ; and that "there us ab extra ”-it is not dear to what extent h e TT T® revelati °n reach descent of spiritual life and force as well a TT ° f thlS med iation as a as most men know too well, is not enough T lnf ° rmation ' Information, The whole tenor of his argument is toThn IT “T b ® the wiH to use it. natural evolution alone which Idhlf T there can b e nothing in o utilizing this information from above nature IT t hnm&n spirit capable its parent in ceaseless warfare As that d ° f Settlng itself to oppose S ° mus t the spirit be born of the sLft ^ “ b ° m ° f the flesh is flesh truth our author is more silent than Tl iTT ktter haIf of the dual it seems to us that, though he has seen so n There are times when sequences of his own troths have K T® h S ° clearly > the fu H logical con- that false monism of the common thTTofTTl ^ h ' dden fr ° m him b y roverts, yet still, in part. unconsciouslyTccepts P °b ^ ^ himself ^ if this were not so; for the scientific • T Perhaps it would be strange itself to tracing the long sequence of IT ° f . eV ° lution ’ deliberately confining life not life itself, has thereby imbued the^hZ^ the vehicles of ^ "<■** PELIGIO MILITIS Process O 1 this view —T W tbe Bas t, and in Tu 1 *5 ‘’“I 'omZ Stiel, 0 ', th * fa «”~f°M y 'spir ? ' hC “"Wive of One S%£' MoTJtlSe''“ b * "".oved ,-t r: lishi ' Md r *™““«*,„, t r* '^riX’zz r b "” iis St it,? °»»* “■'S^d«r u “'0 .r„ °r' equal firmness, that - p naent existence of evil • y f Be mg— so that it Si*"*- and thus T',? “ r “"“d «ti When this view is taken l ' nSeparab le hill-mark a "d that W e cease to think that T Y thin g s become eZ/ f ’ manif ested beiW »i°rtrr,r i^ p-nwats 0 ' p,a - “ ^ir y :rthri”^t he same view, too, tends to ^ function s and ^dSa Warfa « that takes ^oroastrian dualism • the duaIls ni which ho i Gt tIle arm y of Ormo ^ «»»1 couflicTitt""”'* " « temts o™ !lT Kd "i notZZ1' 'tathapive, is Sof m * ki »S ™»n hit? d ,ro ”’ «1» Pra -" rhaso*"a Piett THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 116 lead, for the “cosmic process”, certainly in its larger sense, includes more than the processes of nature. . In it is good as well as evil; Ormazd as well as Ahri- man. The soul must stand alone. Our author rightly emphasizes this. But as in each atom the whole universe is integrated, so must the soul inte¬ grate within itself the whole of the shining army of heaven. As Edward III stood aloof at Cr£cy that the Black Prince might win his spurs, so does Ormazd stand. Yet it is with his power and his armies that the soul must fight, to prove itself his son; and the victory it must win is Ormazd’s, or it is nothing worth—defeat, not victory. Henry Bedinger Mitchell I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his ene¬ mies; for the hardest victory is the victory over self .— Aristotle. True happiness never flows into a man , but always out of him. Heaven itself is more internal than external .— Newman. THE HAKO: AN INDIAN RITE PART I Y vrith som aS f ?u Ca r'° i n 0ffers ’ 1 make a Ptfgrimage to the Southwest some one of the Indian religious ceremonies as my chief objective ’ Hooi vi n ™ ay be hat / J0lt my hot and dusty way across Arizona to the far scSSSSS : 5=--i:s£-H?s.'= r"hy t W t lhe C T d ‘ L “ F,ii °' e,: b^hSSfg z the rhythmic tramp and sonorous chorus of the great Dominvo rvJ, n nor m0 re weirdly dr,™,* «* Slulako £S Harbingers of the Rain dance back and forth before strange altars atZiSi I have a mind full of unforgettable pictures, and yet I believe the lure which draws one back again and again, and which holds one’s unabated interest through long hours of endless repetition, is not alone the enjoyment of the lsual beauty or the fascination of the intricate rhythm of the music but that underneath and above and back of the brilliant patterning of co our under neath and above and back of the insistent measures of chorus and drum and united 6 ' T W U ^ aware of direct Purpose; that here is a united wi 1 which is using colour and gesture, melody and rhythm with a full belief ,n their creative potency, so that, inevitably, one is forced from he to^theHigh*^wers! >eCtat0r ^ ^ With the » appeal and T by n ° means , able t0 pursue this thought unaided; the barriers of race and language and alien beliefs are too difficult for any casual observer to 17 118 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY penetrate; but fortunately there has been much scholarly and unprejudiced research in the field, and the results are readily available. One book above all others has seemed to me to furnish the coveted key of understanding, and ave therefore made it the subject of this study. It is a ponderous volume which as one reads and re-reads, turns under one’s very hands from a dry-as- dust tome put out by the Smithsonian Institution as “Number 22 Part II Publication of the Bureau of Ethnology,” into a living record of human sympathy and spiritual understanding, while it furthermore points the way to a world of prototypes and parallels. There are suggestions which carry one s thoughts to the Eleusmian mysteries of archaic Greece, to the East Indian Upamshads, to the Japanese No Plays, or the Egyptian hymns to Ra descendants. 61 ^ 6 “““ ^ The. sub-title of the volume is, “The Hako: a Pawnee Ceremony”- an d though actually a rite of the plains’ Indians, it nevertheless shows unmistak¬ able evidence of origin on the Mexican plateau, and in general character is closely akin to the greater religious dramas of New Mexico and Arizona Genencally they are all enacted prayers for tribal well-being,—for rain the harvest of corn or good hunting; specifically in this instance for peace and plenty and children to strengthen and carry forward the life of the people ThlwYu 1 J° r T rt iS MiSS MiCe Fletcher ’ wh0 was a re «Pient of the aw fellowship from the Peabody museum, and who devoted her life to studv th l° maha and rdat6d tribes ' 1 ha - been to!d by I ladv hnM he J’ that ShC WaS 30 exquisitel y feminine and retiring little ady, but because of devotion to her Indian charges she betook herself from the seclusmn of the reservation to Washington, there to brave the powers-thY be in their defence; that she succeeded in lobbying through a bill insmW T pursuing my studies of the Omaha I soLni * CCntury whlle described in the following pages but owing t »i T ™ tnessed the ceremony knew ,11 the ritual i, ^ "* ° n,y record. I was told that it wa<; cf-ui - . ime to secure a complete Pawnees and later I was able to estat 1* , preser y e m * ts entirety among the .be credentials that »>•««» <* confidence. k y extended acquaintance among the Omaha and the THE HAKO: AN INDIAN RITE 119 warm friendship of their leading men. I need not recount the failure of efforts made during some fifteen years to gain the desired information, since at last in 1898 I found the desired opportunity. “Experience has shown that no linguistic training enables an unaided student to truly record and interpret Indian ritual; one must have a native collaborator who speaks English and is at the same time well versed in the Sacred Language and other intricacies of his own tongue, and who possesses the mind and character which fit him to grasp the ideals of his race. I have had such a collaborator in James Mur trie, an educated Pawnee whom I have known since he was a school boy, twenty years ago, and it is his patience, tact and unfailing kindness that have soothed the prejudices and allayed the fears of the old men who are the repositories of all that remains of the ancient tribal rites. “ It is one of these old men named Tahirussawichi who is the direct authority for the text of this report and for the full explanations which accompany it. He bears the title of Kurahus, which is both a term of general respect and the specific designation of a master of the Hako ceremony, and though ready with good fellowship he never forgets the dignity of his calling as guardian of the sacred rites. He has held to an earth lodge as his abode until it has dropped to pieces about him for, I cannot live in a white man’s house; the sacred articles committed to my care must be kept in an earth lodge, and in order that I may fulfil my duties toward them and my people, I must be there also, so that as I sit I can stretch out my hand and lay it on Mother Earth.’ “When on a visit to me in the capital, I took him to see the Washington Monument, and he admired it greatly, measuring the base by foot paces and noticing its height, but when I suggested that he ascend to the top he shook his head saying, ‘ The white man likes to pile stones upon stones, and he may go to the top of them; I will not; I have climbed the mountains made by Tirawa, the Great Spirit. It has taken four years of close relations with my kind old friend to obtain the full account of the ceremony, for it was hard to overcome the scruples of his early training which enjoined strict secrecy concerning many of the rituals. “ The word Hako has been adopted by me as a title from among the varying Indian designations because it has a comprehensive meaning which includes, and can in turn be applied to, the symbolic articles employed, to the songs and ceremonial acts and to the participants themselves; furthermore because of its etymological derivations it implies that every object herein used is endowed with a life of its own, that it breathes and has a speaking voice, just as has the drum or tom-tom whose rhythm follows and emphasizes the emotions expressed in the songs.” The philosophy of being which is here described is pre-eminently a world of spiritual relations in which nature and the elements, man and the lowliest of creatures, all play their allotted rdles. It recognizes an ultimate spiritual power, unknown and unknowable, dwelling in a place too high to be reached by the thoughts of men. 120 THE 0 S 0 PHICAL QUARTERLY This mighty power whom we call Tirawa, or Tirawa-atius, the Father of f. LL ' n0 ° ne can descnbe, for where he lives no man has ever been; nor can this D ,ghty Po yf speak d,rect >y t0 ma n; for this reason he has created the Lesser Powers, and has given to them as their abode the blue circle of the sky. Three of the Lesser Powers are the most potent; first the Life Breath or bpint, which is manifested in the Four Winds, guardians of the Four World Quarters, and which .bestows the breath of life on all creatures; it is a very potent power though invisible. “Next comes the Force of Life, vitality, which is manifested as the Sun- f, at er ’ a " d ™ hlch seads down fier Y strength and the vigor of growth; while the p l ° f Gestation - of conservation, which is manifested as the narth Mother; it nourishes and supports all life. “Besides these three there are other Lesser Powers; Water is one, and Vegetation is one, for both these Powers dwell in the circle of the Sky and are Brown F T *7 ? Sometimes too the Morning Star and the Brown Eagle are named as Lesser Powers.” Intermediate between the Lesser Powers and man, lies the abode of the Visions, not of ordinary shifting dreams, but the visions or revelations which on occasions of need can be sent by the Powers down to man to reveal or to point the way. Only men who are seeking to follow the teachings given by the Powers are able to behold or remember or interpret these Visions whii come in many forms such as the birds which are invoked and symbolized in the lemony Y« while ,11 are not able to behold or remember all „ho participate m a nte feel the gladness which the Visions impart as they move about unseen. It is usually by night that they come, for then it is easier for is SSEHSHHSSf convinced of the advisability of such a ston ho n When thoroughly the contemplated rite requires Mncf • ’ f the P artlcl P a nts which Master of the Hako w£ from th lmpor } ant ° f these is a Kurahus or charge of all the proceedings h rmus e tbeT ent f aCCCp ^ ° ffice ’ is in absolute the unequivocal respect of the neonle ' 71 ? ° great dlgnity who commands intricacies of the enactment ab^o b °’ m ° re ° Ver - is versed » all the for word each of its many songs with TheTa ^ teaC,lmgS ’ and knowin 8 word The other members of tJ grou? THE HAKO: AN INDIAN RITE I2I Medicine Men, a second Chief, a number of musicians, and, lastly, kindred r friends who are willing to furnish the requisite gifts. The C . hl ! f 7 ° inaugurates the rite is known as the Father, and the entire joup which he assembles as the Party of the Fathers. It is their province to fol the SOm t ma 'i 1 ?1, SU ,r C,ent W ° rth and P ° Wer in the second Ullage, to vouch Ind w-11 ! l' anCe: if he aCCepts the honour - he wiU be styled the Son. Childr' T 7 rtf* th T m hlS tUm ' a grou P known as the Party of the Children, to bear their due share in the coming ceremony According to Miss Fletcher’s analysis, the Hako consists of twenty distinct the rlstToTheterf ntUalS ’ ° f Which bd ° ng t0 the Pr ep a ratory Rites, the rest to the ceremony proper; each ritual embodies one general idea which .s e aborated by songs and attendant acts, both songs aid acts so c7osefr JhoUSt e 'TH 1 th ° Ught that 006 hdpS t0 keep the other in m ind. The the'mii?' expr ^ s ®® d determines the rhythm, which in turn controls the words the music, and the duration of the notes; moreover, the thought thus embodied in one ntual leads so directly to the next that they form a sequence which in tionTth Cann0t 1<>giCally bC br0ken ’ thus insuri " g the preserva- of the ceremony in its entirety through generations of oral transmission c°m pact and closely knitted structure bears testimony to the mental grasp of the people who promulgated it, and to their defined beliefs Rh\ thm always determined by the thought to be expressed, dominates the entue rendition and is always exact, for if any liberties were taken with t the en - In a Z r p 7 S T' d bC b,UITed ° r distorted t0 the native ear the Preparatory Rites, the sacred symbolic articles are constructed and vested with their supernatural authority, the choice of the Son is mystically determined messengers are dispatched from one village to the Ser o announce the impending honour, and upon their return Jth the Son’s accept ance, the entire party of the Fathers makes a stately journey thither Td , dy , Wdc °™ ed: after whlch a ceremonial lodge is consecrated as the Nest in which the New Life is to be born, and the Son, clothed bv the FaVh er in ym ohc robes joins with him in recognition of the Divine Power Above This completes, so to speak, the setting of a stave and th* 7 Z , actors in readiness for the ensuing drama, which is ushered in by^areltel admonitions and a ceremonial feast prepared by the Fathers in toLI nfl! care given by kind parents to their offspring. With the initial relaf tv, ? established there follow days and nights in which the Visions are invoked the cosmic birth of Dawn is celebrated, the male forces of the Day and the female forces of the Earth-all the Powers of the Above and the Below-arl the Nest of the Lodge for the culminating To follow this prolonged dramaturgy through, with any degree of complete ’ MS FleXr’ lb i e 7 ^'7 ^ m ° re ° Ver ' for those "'ho desire it Miss Fletcher s book is readily available. In it are given all the T kd6 a S 0f c ev ,f y sep ara te ritual, and the metrical record^ the — with the Indian Syllables and their literal English equivalent, followed by ♦ 122 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY Tahirassawichi’s explanation of the “inner meaning," together with Miss Fletcher s freer poetical rendition. Naturally, however, this makes a rather formidable bit of reading, so it has seemed legitimate to attempt a curtailed transcription. The explanations are almost word for word those of the old I" ' a " a r r I n ' While thC analy8is and the translation are Miss bedded th ? f f 0Wlng . a ^ount no comment or interpretations have been omttted neCeSS,ty mUCh tHat iS in4eres4ing and significant has The Preparation As the hour designated for the initial rites approaches, the group of the Fathers assembles in one of the more commodious dwellings which fas been set aside for their use; the Kurahus, or Master of the Hako, already duly anointed and wrapped in official robes, seats himself near the west wall facing eastward, while before him lies a mat spread with all the materials needed in the construction of the Sacred Articles. Forthwith he begins the opening song, which is a direct invocation to the Powers to approach and endow the Hako with divine life; it recalls the creation of man the gifts bestowed upon him by the All-Father, and the establishment of rites through which he can in turn make appeal; furthermore, man’s desire for the reproduc- tion and continuation of his life is dwelt upon, and the orderly approach by which he shall make this desire known to Tirawa, thus indicating the religious basis of the impending ceremony. It is in the form of a litany each stanza beginning with a petition to “give heed," and closing with an a surance t£at heed has indeed been vouchsafed. aurance mat There follows closely upon this invocation the strictlv rititaiiot; r u■ ■ of the symbolic objects; these are many them all there are three of pre-eminent import,—those representing thefvT” 2 Eagle and the Woman Eagle or the male and female forces and the ^ 30 ness of night; while, as a last distinguishing mark there arc aft 8 1 a 3rk " .»wirdX™FL t Stt™; <i ThetT"^ “I? M ° t ‘ by «* reared. ,„d ^ carefully deputed on , h e „i,dea. aKn his first voyage of discovery in 672 hefZl t 11 Marquette m ade ” reverence by practically all the tribes of atherCd Stems held the following entry in his journal This P ^ Ml f lssippi Valley and made thing in the world. The sceptres of o„r J Ca Umet ls the mos t mysterious the natives have such reverence for it that* 83 n0t S ° mUch res P ect ed, and and war, the arbiter of life and death for in tlTwf ^ 14 the god of P eace their arms before the Sacred Pipe.” ’ ^ h ° 4 CSt battles they lay down so la r y in exampies ° f ^^ where the young amnu/turel ftTsT ^ the " es4 leading r 61 es in the enactment p m ,f? • • 4 4h gle symbols should bear of the Corn Mother, £Th e c , 5 ?s h ° wev 'b is «* Vn.bo. generations ago, taught to our fathers the m f- 1 ° f Tlrawa w ho, many the gamering of the crops thT^men ^ bears the proper requisites. It must be ve 1 tCh f ° r a perfect ear which even, straight rows of glistening kernels andTt *“*! , and . shlnin g white, with tassel of silky fibres, so that in every resnecf > US ^ tlpped with a waving marvellous powers of the Earth 7 P 14 18 worthy to represent the r ; ythmic «*«■** «■ the mystic power of leader is rnnf a ' ° 4be ab °de of Tirawa, where covered with the blue pigment which hold When the domed tip is of the Powers" so .hatTr«“ t t hw^" '*" !piril <* «» Abode equ.jist.nt blue lines are traced from ,h,, , 7 ""' °f * he sky i wl “" four butt, as paths which the Powers mav ‘’“I downwar d toward the aid; when over the tip floats a breast feather as'l^te they , are called u P°n for then, bearing these insignia of office and authority? ^ l dnftlng white c^ud; from Atira, the Mother, to h’Atira the Mother \ ab ,° Ve ’ 14 ls tra nsformed she is a person with power to tad and S.T^b^^rth-life. “Now Earth-Mother, who knows all things she too .h f u° meS Straight from tb e knows all things. We bind to her a’suDDort f a h 4 s f wlsdom and hkewise the wild plum, most fruitful of all the forest t f hl ° n ? d of a P oint ed branch of she will not have to lie ctmo V ny." he " ^ ^ £ th^^are kid'at ceremonkd^rest upon a"wfldcat^slrin—' CU ^f US ^P re P ared > is== except Mother-Corn, who, as leader in the f QUlet P rot ection-all upright by means of her plum-wood suooort p?? 7 ’ , Stands for ward and cine men wielding each a s Pread e^le-^ng^’and he who Iwamth^btle of Father" 124 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY “And now we commence the rites through which the Son is selected. It is a very binding relation which we are to form, and the man who is suggested by the Father must be approved by these leaders of the tribe as one who is in every way worthy and whom we would gladly have bound to us by so close a tie. But we must also procure the sanction of h’Atira, the Corn-Mother, who is wise and who is now our leader. This ritual is always a night ceremony, for by night the spirit is more free, and can move about more easily. “That which we now do is very hard. We must try and try with all our might or we cannot succeed. We have to make all of our separate spirits as one spirit, joined each to each in one whole, and then this, our united spirit, must make itself one with the spirit of Mother Corn. Her spirit must unite with our spirit so that together we may go forth on our search for the Son. Sometimes it may happen that one of the party cannot do this thing; he may try, but because of some part of his nature he cannot be at one with the others, and he cannot with them join the spirit of h’Atira, so our effort will be made in vain. We are therefore very careful about who shall be chosen for the Hako party.” It is a very long ritual, lasting hour after hour; and from the solemn chanting of the first stanza—“ Mother Corn, O hear! Open our Way! Lo, as we draw near let our souls touch thine while we pray thee”—through the eight verses, and during the intervening periods of silent meditation, thought and desire must be centred on the one supreme objective. “While we sing our spirits and the Spirit of Mother Corn come together. Now we are all to meditate. We sit with bowed heads, and Mother Com sits with bowed head; we are all to think over and consider who shall be the Son. “We must all agree upon the choice, Mother Corn and all; it is very difficult for all to unite, but we must do so before we can follow Mother Corn where she determines to lead us; it often takes a long time. “ It is while we sing the third stanza that the choice is made. Mother Corn lifts her head and stands erect; then she moves through the air flying on her journey to the Son and we follow. But you must understand it is not the ear of corn itself that travels through the air, nor do our bodies follow—it is the spirit of h’Atira that moves, and it is our united spirits that follow, that travel with her to the land of the Son while we are singing. The path which now is opened by the spirit of Mother Corn, we, the group of the Fathers, will take when we in our bodies journey to the Son, but the way must first be opened in this manner; the path must be opened and made safe by her spirit. “When the Son’s village is reached h’Atira (and we too, for we are one with her) moves about among the lodges till she finds that one where the Son lies sleeping. She enters that lodge and touches the sleeping Son. He does not see her, nor does he waken, but although he sleeps his mind is opened. In a dream he hears and sees one of the birds which are part of the Hako and are bound on the Feathered Stems, for the spirits of those birds are with Mother THE HAKO: AN INDIAN RITE 125 Corn and they do her bidding. When he wakes in the morning he will remem¬ ber that dream, and as he thinks upon it he will know that he has been chosen to be the Son. “Thus the way has been made straight from the lodge of the Father to the lodge of the Son, so that the bodily messengers can travel in safety; and the mind of the Son has been opened so that he will be ready to receive these messengers when they arrive.” Miss Fletcher says it is noteworthy that the Kurahus recounted this strange portion of the ceremony with the same matter-of fact simplicity as the more ordinary episodes, merely reiterating, “it is indeed a very hard thing to do.” On the following day, four young men, lithe and strong of limb, are dis¬ patched to bear the proposal of alliance to the Son. “When they reach the village and the Son hears the words they speak, he will be reminded of the dream in which he was touched by Mother Com. He will call a council, and when the idea has been duly considered, the messenger will be sent back to the Father bearing the words: ‘ I am ready.’ Only a very grave hindrance, such as the death of a near relative, would prevent the Son from accepting.” When the youths return with the Son’s reply, there is great rejoicing, and all hasten to make ready for the journey and the ensuing festivities. Much food must be prepared, both for the Hako party itself and for the feast offerings which will be tendered to the Children, and there must be many gifts of special value worthy to commemorate so important an occasion. When at last all is in readiness, and the morning set for the departure is at hand, the vdfious sacred symbolic articles are bound bird-wise on a slender lodge pole, and are lifted high up toward the East that they may be vivified by the breath of Dawn and the first rays of the rising Sun, while with measured steps, so many to the east, so many to the west, so many to the other world quarters, the entire group of the Fathers treads out on Mother Earth the rude image of a man with outstretched arms, “whose feet stand where our feet stand, and who, coming thus straight from Tirawa through this our ceremonial act, will walk with us as a protector on our journey.” The journey may be a very long one; day after day, sun-drenched and wind¬ swept, they follow the mystic guide, the Com Mother, as, flanked on either hand by the Eagle Calumets, she is borne before them over the stretch of virgin prairie. There are charming incidental songs suited to the varied hazards of the way,—to mountains and mesas, to winds and rivers, to the buffalo and the deer. The one to a stream which crosses the path is especially lovely: “ Dark against the sky yonder distant line Lies before us; trees we see, long the line of trees Bending, swaying in the breeze. “Bright with flashing light yonder distant line Runs before us, swiftly runs, swift the river runs Winding, flowing o’er the land. 126 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY Hark! Oh hark! a sound, yonder distant sound Comes to greet us, singing comes, soft the river’s song, Rippling gently ’neath the trees.” J™* m mi " d tbat the Hako had its far origin in the Land-of-little-Rain and irde P of C th em0ti ° n ° f theS6 WOrds ' voicin K delight in the splash arid country R Trh Wa , ter .’ a " d m the bnght verdure so coveted in an voiced b, S' a u- l P significance for this occasion is more clearly ZttZaLZ ^ ^ rCiterated 38 th6y Stand the brink a " d wade “Oh Kawas, come! To thee we call, oh come and thy permission give, Into the stream to wade and forward go”_ b°e r ’liS ng thC ent f\ cerem °ny, Water is a personified divinity and may not eachSer IrTt ” f ° r ° rdinar - v Purposes To at otJtTde ' Perm,SS1 ° n 13 HUmbIy S ° Ught t0 enter an d cross to the who 1 ? ey ”f ar their destinati °n; they are met and greeted by an envoy and to the d T m , terchange of & ts and songs, guides them to the village nd to the dwelling where the Son awaits their coming “ He is seated at the which has" IZ bestowed ^ S ^ 'T*** ^ * i$ a Very high honor owhest, not assuming any prominence before the people ” „ th?do n „rw.vT S '’T °i th ' ,0de<i ” h ““' ,or we enter ceremonially ■ come to the entrance hnnmmr alA s g that Mother Corn has heart of man glad and wf mVeS** 0 ™ 8 ! °l ‘ fe ’ the promise that makes the as we do so that the • ? ! ie cry of thankfulness, ‘Nawairi!’, thinking the pas^ge-tvay ‘in Recognition rfuRR' threshold and t>ke four steps along and we sing that Mother Corn ha f Sam ® P° wers of the World Quarters, for the entrance of life and a vain !*”?,[ haS 0pened the door of the lodge The bearers of th r i g , we ^ ve cry of thankfulness, ‘Nawairi 1 ’ which makes the hearf Zankful th" TS 't”** promise and after them come the do^ors Sth T 156 ? We fr0m the Above, men march slowly around and a , ,, le . ' V1 e -spread Wings. These five north and the east 2L u^’ t0 the S0Uth ’ the west, the and the Eagle Wings ^ ^ Ste ™ promise" Se ££*• ^ ^ the Of life from the Powers Above. E g 1S SOanng mth the promise THE HAKO: AN INDIAN RITE 127 ‘‘When we stand and face the east, the White Eagle Stem must be on the right, toward the south, for it represents brightness, the light, the day, the un; it is the male, it is for defense, and is carried on the side farthest away from the people. Kawas, the Brown Eagle Stem, is on the left towards the north; it represents darkness, the night, and moon, it is the female and is earned nearest to the people and it has the right to make the Nest and to seek help from Tirawa for the Children. Kawas is potent in this ceremony, which is to ask for the gift of children; not oniy that children may be born to us, but that the close tie of parent and child may be established between us and those to whom we are bringing these Sacred Objects, that peace may be between the tribes. So we sing that Kawas is hovering in the Lodge as an Eagle hovers over her nest; this stanza is sung slowly for the Eagle as it hovers is slow in its movements. “We sing the next stanza faster, for now Kawas has stretched her mighty wings and is driving all harmful influences out of the Lodge, making the place ready for all the good that is promised to us through the ceremony, and the doctors raise and lower their feather fans to simulate an Eagle clearing its nest, flapping and fanning out all impurities. At the west, back of the fire a space is now set apart and made sacred as the Holy Place; here the wildcat skin is spread and upon it the Sacred Articles are reverently laid at rest, Mother Com standing beside them upright and a little to the fore.” At this time the Kurahus appoints certain men to special duties; some must bring wood and water, some attend to the cooking, some assist the Children m their daily work, and some must undertake certain tasks connected with the ” . I , In thla wa y the lab °ur attendant on the long enactment is planned and divided, so that nothing will be neglected and there will be no dispute or The business of administration over, the Kurahus returns to his ceremonial functions, and directs the Father to clothe the Son as his child in the beautiful embroidered robes which have been carefully provided for the occasion With the new relationship thus visibly established, Father and Son unite in making the Smoke offering, invoking a blessing through this closest possible approach to Tirawa, and offering a prayer for fulfilment of the ceremony about to be inaugurated. It opens with the admonitions of the Father,— “ My Son now heed! Attend the command I give you! Oh speak to the Gods listening above us Oh let your prayers ascend to the Mighty Ones on high”; and closes with the words, “See the Smoke ascend! Now the odor mounts, follows where his voice Sped intent to reach Where Gods abide; there the odor pleads Pleads to gain us help.” 128 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY thl'TrdeVof 6 this*T f Un " eCOrded ' for the Kurahus explains: Priest of the Rain Shrine and it does Itl always be conducted by the Son says as he pravs m /jTp be '° ng to me to know it. What the for us to hear, but we are bidde^otake^eedthat JheT f ° r * ) T is as our child, have been sDoken u * * ,f* the pra y ers ofthe Son, who distant places where dwel/the Great Po 6 traV6 ” ed far ’ goin ^ on and on to the When he has finished**? u l Powers who guard the Rain.” and lays them before the Chief of^is""^ ^ ^ ° takeS ° ff h ‘ S fine garments a mong the Children, and S£ thi! ^ ** be di ^ b uted complete; Mother Com duly vested with , renunciatlon ’. the Preparation is Lodge, and Kawas has cleansed it of a ii • • Vme authont y has opened the Child by the Father, has offeredprayerTnd 1 ? t ^ S ° n ’ clothedasa garments worn during the act hav/) Smok e to the Powers Above; the Sacred Articles are resting in IX^Kf^eS^ ^ S arranged aad in readiness for the ceremony ’ a " d eVerythln S E. A. (To be continued) >££££■-* ** - •**-- * **» „ «, ** , w . WAR memories the CREEPING shadow Learn from the sins of others tu» ,/ M„ tfee W „, drhe W . eny md Jrin «« The Prussian -was born a h , , B °° K of Echoes. CWtHzati0n «*» make him ferocious. Goethe. r:::~ . uty of any resident or even tripper) I S eW^ ^ ^ and unavoidable pleased at first with the lif P = , ’ 1 set tled down in a little flat , of a heedless world intitedT". ^ Bei " g ’ Hke ^y oll^LT the start, quite blind to what was goinvo save politics I \v ZenS Empires, and while I had int. a S g01ng on behind the scenes in tlJ r 3S ’ * fact “," ak ' ***>■ ampte opponunity, duri„ e , hat ti ° f )*“■■ There was „ ur ' As if by some unrecognized, yet nre arra / 7 ° Pened to many thintrs “ b “" to"! >«h d, amati ; y l c p u j c *™"f“ *». •!* ho«r »(4 3 n the very a ir, though, as , look it* “T'™ « ».r-«l k world, which h.d ye, S««ure- had to see von Buiow H; and p,^ we title, bestowed upon him because of his “fir ? “ S newly w °n princely the moment everything seemed to smile for theT SUCC6SS ” 3t AIgecira s. For dawn even upon them, that what had lnl !, ™ 8 ' but so °n it began to to'Ptoity.*.*™,,defeat, “» » krea, view* Lngland into closer sympathy with her - abase ment of France had drawn n ,he very f *" - - « as 129 130 THE 0 S 0 PHICAL QUARTERLY mr,ra,e °' ih " Tnr * *»*,•. ,„d G ™„ y beS an sr.“ 2 se££t of ! “ n<ii " 8 very mach a,one '“” “ npa,a, “ We fore and more, as the months passed, did Germany realize what she had BnS T: and m °; e did She resent the un qualified^su PP ort which Great Bntam had given to France, thus making the German discomfiture inevitable “.12 Xd°,2 eZ H*‘, 1 * l ’ ink “ “ ***** „ , , . . *' ,h,s «* k '« «• peculiar and ven- mous quality of hate which was to give a special colour to the War-time snirit Sedan ” bur? ,“ the great6St sorrow F ™ce had known since an , but it was a sorrow which was to reopen her eves to Hip mm™ n 2 s=,r„ " b = picture of political Germany during my years of 2 ?° n !u ** glVG a thing, I should be quite unfitted for the’task and for ^ t? ^ F ° r ^ the political data one wants, in co^eSS ^ unofficial resident of a comitr,, u, oooks. btill, even an reverse, to take note of the proverbiTr ”H° PP °' rt ir'i t ' eS ' amusing and the nificant daily occurrences which show the' Jay "the "hT retrospect, one comes to appreciate what foreig n in pre - War ** many, they found a peculiar charm l thJ s ?’ PartICuIarl y in South Ger- life; the quiet streets where almost irmi n? 10 ° ~ running ma chinery of daily where .no *° “ d being instantly and ruthlessly seized and ’ dogs ’ for '"stance, being strictly prohibited -where no one* u PP r essed, even street whistling mntter, even tanhuwy wh^n" n ev ,T “1 ° f br “ th «. for thj ness- where the rather heavy architecture "of Z P ° Ver ' y ° r dr “ nken - reheved by countless window boaes M e! hrfn. n ““ ““ deli 6 htf <>% where lovely gardens glowed in the clear i/i * flowers and trailing vines; Bavarian capital. A, L« tte 2 2 eLZe h." •>« little •he longed-for q ta„. Everybody wS^Sh™ WAR MEMORIES 3 i yet everybody had leisure for enjoyment; the consequence being that every¬ body looked mildly contented and well-to-do, and that, like the insides of a clock, everybody seemed fitted into the very place he was best able to fill, that which best suited his peculiar constitution. Birth, death, pleasure or insanity,—all were so adequately provided for that you hardly knew they occurred at all. Presently, however, you began to miss something; then you began to have a kind of compressed feeling, as a dog must when he is given gunpowder (I think it is gunpowder) to stunt his growth, for, as it was observed by one who also lived there: “outside the indicated limits of daily life, almost nothing is permitted, almost everything forbidden.” It took you a longer or shorter time to wake up to this fact, but wake up to it you did before you were done with Germany, or Germany was done with you. It was not that the average law-abiding foreigner objected to obeying municipal or State rules and regu¬ lations, but there were such mountains of them! And everything which you might inadvertently do that turned out to be “polizeilich verboten ”, no matter how innocuous its nature, was known as a “crime”. It sometimes happened that instead of being compressed into or depressed by a huge variety of municipal by-laws, which stared at you from every corner of every street, and which actually followed you into your own house,—it sometimes happened that you fancied you would like to expand a trifle, according to your own national or otherwise inherited lights; to be mildly spontaneous in fact; not necessarily at the expense of your neighbour, but just to keep yourself from getting stiff and angular. If you had any such fancy as this, however, the sooner you got over it the better, and the best way of getting over the disas¬ trous leaning toward the spontaneous in life, was to read a few pages out of the police regulations, these being not only available to all, but being rather + pressed upon your individual notice. Having read, you were likely to lose some of your misplaced gaiety, for “what a German may not do” was sin¬ gularly confounding. You could not move your modest lares and penates even across the street without asking the permission of the police, a permission strictly withheld unless full and adequate reasons were forthcoming; the cleaning of your own kitchen chimney was a matter of strict police control; you might not dismiss any servant, no matter what she had done, except under certain given conditions, and even then you had to be so careful and so guarded in what you said, that it often amounted to saying nothing at all; a bull-dog (if you owned one) must be led, when walking abroad, on a leash exactly 16 centimetres long; if you chanced to break a bottle in the street, you had to assemble and then remove the fragments of glass according to the most approved police methods; if you wished to stand still for a brief moment on the pavement, while let us say, you opened your hand-bag to take out your purse, you must be careful that the police did not catch you taking up more than the space permitted you by the authorities (so many square feet), and so on, ad infinitum. As an English resident of that period wrote: “ It is, in fact, easy to discover by simple subtraction, what, if anything, a German may do”. 32 theosophical quarterly ” u ,t ° f rr ■»“-**■»** ^ laws would be quite impossible f ? T" of each and ever y one of these save one.” There really seemed littleT & ^ Wbabitants were Policemen “Supervision” was oneTf fh ' V this dement all right within reason, but the Ger™™^ ° f ,'f® ln Germany - That was imagination, no doubt because the h" 5 "® Ver Ieft an ything whatever to the that they cannot the Iong Juries, and useful commodity I m ve but cm ? 6 t0 SUppIy that most valuable experience which , wl, *«**«*■ “ now ,t appears ludicrous enough. Returninghn 'T* ^ th ° Ugh in at my front door, unnoticed by my maid who ^ ^ 1 let myself in the kitchen, and passing to the rear nf d ’ n W&S buSy Preparing lunch I was very much astonished and exceedinvlvT f *5" my bedroom was ’ strange men, in a kind of fatigue uniform which I Sd T ^ tW ° perfectly hands and knees on the floor so busilv nee J f d reco £mze, on their one of them took the trouble to look uotn ^ d °‘ ng Somethin g that only ssnsr * — - h.d had .K"^Sr; ed n ^ e “ othe ; "““ee Planee from the man who the added civi.it,. that he r^ToLTJITZ^l ' ** »- M don t disturb us. Can’t you see that we fl i f ^ he . wouId say: “Please measured tone, counting something out loud fofttf’ he Went on ’ in a steben, acht , neun , zehn etc. 6 °f his companion, several times. litt^matdtamf t0 be ’' a " d rang ft savagely, What does this mean, Bertha'” I asked’ “h ®* 7 ™ ntten on her face, men without my orders?” How dare you admit these stoo finiShed “ tJOJiriting, now with less indifference, in fact ^ « SP ° keSman ’ ,0 °king at me, th£ time telling me something which any idiot fff hftek™ 6 ’ f“ d th ° Ugh he were “ Why, we are the police.” g ° kn ° w): intruders appeared tolhink^imsdf the^’ !T that neither of the to my maid (a nice, kindly little person she r> i- ^ the wron g’ 1 turned m jt all about.? I feel as though the whole h* of usTIn 1 appealed ' “ what But, protested Bertha incredulously sne L ^ ° St ° Ur minds ” third person, as all well trained servants’do P ^ l ° mC ’ ° f COUrse - in the deferential form of address, "doesn't the d °’ maklng use also of a specially S arIy t0 measure the size of rooms a^d‘tefl^™ that the P ° lice come sleep » one room? Over-crowding is ma " y People f n ” Then aloud pIanned cemetery ^ think of don’t they so much as fi„! H \ if they are the methlng of that lives in a flat? And d , d out beforehand whether 1 ‘Powerful police, to .|" ve crntr d0n * lhey «•*. a": t.rz.'j’f * — °h, but,” answered r d be conv enient °! f *« it m„chT do ST “» "tb .be World w, r „ , vision within reason is , was °ne of the “stre »’ f Ut as a matter the abuse of authority * 0 ”° ° Ubt ’ an exce llent and w hol] S ’ ° r Wbde su P e r- S ° '» «s I C,„ Z 2' « later, almost "Tfr “““V marked result- ’ th,s over bearing ?." to P r °ve disastrous o^STS amonf: ““ T 127 iTT"- "“ d »« because they were fore d T 3S and cons cription at its ^ ° f tbe spint of do so. Really ft ! t0 ° bey ' not because ft , W ° rSt ' Th ^ obeyed the “Jack-in-office’! 1 °Tr ted t0 littIe more than an fn' Tir*' they want ed to ‘he very officials whom th!v ^ ^ did they appear to lf 6 ” 1 SUrrender to ls the crux, they came y were supposed to have elert d 6 mtlmidat ed by curiously marked trait am 6Very Word these offi ’ !” d final ' y ’ which know the results of thi ™° ng the ra nk and file 0 f the n S t0,d the ™~a ‘hose above then ^ the ^ar; they did as th ma ° Pe ° p,e ' We t ,es Of course one me " ** Were to s '"g sofgs of ha W6re to l d to do by certain things to be righfwhkffi t h' at ' f th ® heart b e sound onl^ 0 " 1 ^ 4 atr ° ci ' from those things- hit ^ h obvious ly a renot right- nl^ ne does ** believe immediately-^hev'tr ’® fe are certain kinds of n ' rec °ils instinctively ^ns, and I„ not d ! ^ but wi ‘h a talT* WWch do not kill paralyzed. d ' SC0Vered «ntil it is too thr ° Ugh ‘he As a matter of actual fact ho ' ^ ^ of thfm G m?ch n t y o hTslty ^ part «f Government. So one b mg that Was goin ^ 0n in the pollce Was merely a " a bout. One bf gan b :f at ? Cl,mb ' ^ ™UntedT ^ ° f tbe the churches, and it bee ° k ' nt ° tbe sc hools into the ^ Wbat U was that everything was the Stef 3 matter ° f some surprise into said le Roi Soleil can-vine *!’ ^ thls quite literally “T’p? uninitlat ed, a Prussian, and the “State” ff phlIoso P h y a step farther -teffV"' ” W *’” ment ”' j t was Prussia afd tie^T ° f Was no'^fth! T " 0t spirit s » •» diSt^srx 134 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY universities and the churches were, each in its own way, a kind of political propaganda bureau; that university professors and clergymen, being all State officials, took the most surprising oaths when they came into office,— oaths which amounted to a promise that, no matter what they were told to say or do by the State, they would say and do that thing obediently; that they would never do anything which even questioned the action of the State (much less could they criticize it) in any way whatsoever. If they were true to their oaths, they could neither teach nor preach what they might consider to be reform, of any sort. They could only teach or preach what was approved and dictated by Prussia. Even the mildest criticism might lead to discharge and disgrace. In return for the oaths taken, the State gave them a social prestige which they would not otherwise have had, for it understood well the value of bribes, and it knew that, to the average German, a title of any sort was a most coveted prize, and that to sell their freedom of speech was little when compared with what they gained in personal importance. One ffidmili? remembe f rthe P art which the German professors and clergymen (admittedly representing national ideals) played during the War; their unani- Take T„H n r JU t StlfiCati ° n ° f !t ' and of th e atrocities which followed in its wake and the entire support which was in consequence received from the German people,—to realize what it meant; the universities and churches were controlled by the State (or Prussia), and the people were controlled by the universities and the churches. ^ of I fl t r e n SCh00,S T f T d , the same spirit ' schoolmasters being also servants of the Government, and the State being exalted to such an extent that bv imperceptible degrees, it came almost literally to replace God Religious SfSSSSSS G e d WOrShiP / f State rather than the WOrship God; presently it would be hatched out Ti, 0 , • • , h ad begun, and been really curious had it not 1 teaching in the schools would have by means ^botlTo^ history ^and^geowaphy^a chil'd fTT* to school was taueht that ail k f ,1' h d ’ fr0m the moment he went of lh ‘ ,0 “ (b " 1 T?*" y E " C,an<1) arch enemy; France, though "degenerate '"w"s“the°”“ r En f ,nd »“ must be watched In fart r* ' WaS 116 trac ^ ltlonaI enemy, and UP that “, lhe «*"*«-. bopan build of the world. Anti-British and , ua . y to : "' rja[ate h " r from the rest and “Sedan Day” with its celoh tl ' I ^ re " ch son g s were sedulously taught, like the later “ Lusitania School Fest " 8 ’] a pecuhar s Pite,—it was somewhat f. to mention b„, a SS2 ^ — ™ s e po,so„ was eertainly working, sr , dua||y , hideous ^ WAR MEMORIES 135 was brought to the attention of the public. It came to be recognized that there were more youthful suicides in Germany than anywhere else in the world. I think few people who have not lived there can realize either the rapidity with which the “fashion” for it grew, or the extent of its practice. Some people attributed it to overwork; others to a growing rebellion against any of life’s saner restrictions. The worst, the most repellent feature, how¬ ever, was the manner in which suicide was usually condoned if not actually defended. To the Englishman, suicide is a simple tragedy, and a coroner’s jury will almost invariably pass a verdict that the act was committed “while temporarily insane”, because it is inconceivable, no matter what the hidden motives, that a man would take his own life under any other conditions, the mere act constituting the insanity. In Germany, however, suicide was not viewed in any such unscientific light as this, and no such unadorned con¬ clusion as “insanity ” seemed to satisfy the public mind. The full pathological explanations were both diligently sought and explicitly given, and in nine cases out of ten, the unfortunate one was shown to have taken his life in order to avoid the disgrace which would have been the consequence of some serious offence. The point is, however, that few seemed to think any the worse of him for having seized this sure means of escaping justice. I well remember the first rude awakening I had. I was talking one day to a German acquain¬ tance, about the young son of a friend of his. The boy had been found guilty of forgery, and had, according to the prevailing custom, shot himself. “How terrible!” I exclaimed, deeply shocked at the news. “How could he do such a thing?” “Terrible?” repeated my German acquaintance, “Why terrible?” \ ou surely are not advocating suicide,” I protested. In such a case as this, of course I am,” he replied, earnestly, “think of the boy’s honour.” “Honour!” I echoed, surprised in my turn. “Do you call it honour to end your life rather than to face the music ’ and take the consequences of your own acts?” But he did ‘face the music’, as you call it; what more do you ask,—he faced death.” “Oh, that,—that’s easy,” I exclaimed, “but it is not easy to drag through years of shame and disgrace in payment for your misdeeds.” He looked at me with Teutonic stubbornness,—have you ever tried to argue with the average German ? His idea of argument is to talk louder and faster than you do, to drown you out, in fact, so that you shut your mouth in sheer despair, or disgust. He thus gets the last word, and that shows that you are wrong and he is right. It is merely another form of the “mailed fist”. So this particular German looked at me sullenly, a dark flush spreading slowly over his broad, rather unwholesome face, and I saw the storm clouds gather. The storm broke. “You don’t understand us,” he blazed, rather brutally. “You don’t understand our national ideas.” theosophical quarterly 136 si ■*= „r rr? unfortunately as is notTJ^Z ! b !' d ' y and sh ^elessly stated as that, and truth." thoiSi^ wir„“t i l U pK.V” h Th C :r' '‘““l " Brai ” “ f tion, however, was that the man P f ’ he worst P art °f the situa- later, when , certata " ™ o? „™ r T “' h °" y Years ver “ tio „ «hth its easy not so difficult to understand. P f paper e P ,sode was SCh °° ,S ' ‘ hm *“• remain either oblivious or indifferent to that- f „ h " d y be ,n 0lST ™<>y and Carlsruhe horror had not come to shnr-V ’• * 6Ven lf outra ges like the always with us, as difficult to escape as the police^!S' ^ ^ WaS exaggerate the sharp line of cleavace that » ?*u' U more so - To life, would be almost impossible: army and civiIian which the army treated the rest of the & . he air of condescension with this sense of ““™«- » -l*=h street-car without running th/danrer' of h C ° U d nde m a crowde d by some faultlessly attired officer, who mig^an^y tfat^^ !° ° ne ^ precanous foothold to his own No m ;ii f g * ' that he Preferred your position was ,i mply ~y; y „„ r were in a shop, and were half wav Ha- u l th y wanted it. If you of groceries, and some mere mess-serzeant !!r PUrchase , of a month’s supply the chances were that you waited whife the r “ t0 bUy a loaf of bread - the person of the mess-sergeant without del army got itself served in almost anythin* i„ an 11 *" accepted f, c , any civilian, of whatever rank. atever rank, took precedence of of course^lway^th^l^a^milhary^rogramm bowever ’ far there was, the public imagination. There was the d r 16, J' 6 calculated to appeal to front of the Royal Palace, where the daily . cha nge of guard at noon, in “goose stepped” itself proudly before anTdm?” S ^ the incornin g guard bled to watch the proceedings. A military band Cr i° Wd ' lnVariably asse m- ■” tte WAR MEMORIES 37 run, as though in a surprise attack. There were, too, the “prelim.W training exercises in barracks, like the “side shows" at a circus and to r d mt;ed 0m T tlmeS ;i h nder C r tain SPecial COndltions ' a danger would be * reca11 bemg taken one day t0 watch bayonet practice. It was kind iff ^ a i?°l eigner ’ 1 Sh ° Uld be intere sted. I was! We sat in a kind of balcony which overhung the bare space below, where the privates were receiving instruction. When a raw recruit is first given his rifle he is enth°u UrSe ’ re T re u d t0 le f rn thC USC ° f eVCry Part ° f i<; ’ and if the ener g y and think thTth WaS d,Splayed that mornin g. were any criterion, I should imarination of7h WaS "° * ° f the nfle which a PP ealed so much to the PartTcukriv d' i* ”7 TeC T ? C Ski " and dCXterity Which two contestants thev , M d Splayed ’ made m y bl00d run cold. There seemed to be nothing of the vrittv f S tha ^flashing, cruel steel, and I thought of those word? exc!ll 7 v P6 " r US Talleyrand: “ 0n P eut toutfaire avec les baionnettes excepte sy asseoir. I could not help inwardly thanking heaven that the recruit who was getting the worst of the fight, was not a Frenchman or an " g ’ Sbman (f ° r tha * fight seemed horribly real); but of course I did not voice my sentiments on that occasion-one was always too much on one’s guard FrLlh t fT anS the satisfaction of imagining that one thought the French or the English could be bayoneted into a ditch. Then there were the great spring manoeuvres—the moving of troops and every kind of military display to dazzle our civilian eyes—when one became painfully aware of the deadly efficiency of the German army; of its marveflou in i t hose pre - w,r <iays ' 1 any talk I had, to discover that a true idealism animated it. Proud as the officers were of their army, and proud as the men in the ranks seemed to be ° hat ' r of fi ce m. something always was lacking, and this puzzled me, knowing what a splendid army it was. When I tried to compare it, from the poinf fdlXrt To theT h th b C arm r ° f ° ther nati ° nS Which 1 knew ’ il al ways one L f * Frenchman, for instance, the military life is a consecrated one, and warfare to him, means the fine essence of something beyond and above mere brute cudgelling; it is a romance perhaps even more than a career But theC tH,nk ^ th r Frenchman ever wholly loses the sense of this. J he German, so far as I could see, approached his military service in an erly different spirit. He did not turn to it because he loved it for itself nor because it had an irresistible attraction for him; but because it opened to him many things which he would not otherwise have had,—power and social position for example. This, so it seemed ,0 me. was true of tteolW even, perhaps, in lesser degree, of the non-commissioned officers. The private' with n° brilliant future possible to him, and no idealism to keep him afloat’ appeared always to manifest a strange lack of enthusiasm which, no doubt’ made him a serviceable part of the "machine”, so long as the machine ran smoothly but of little use, because so lacking in individual fire, once the machine began to run down, and personal bravery, or the assumption of per- - 138 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY sonal responsibility, became necessary. I do not, of course, mean that the German seemed to me to lack all the qualities of the soldier (that would indeed have been a blind miscalculation), but I never could see that he had the higher, the essential, the refining ones; and even in those days, the attitude of the officer toward his men, appeared to me revolting. The men in the ranks, whole regiments of them, were just “cannon fodder” long before the World War. Of course we all read von Bernhardi’s Germany and the Next War, when that literary high-explosive burst on our dozing minds, and it was soon evident that “World Power or Downfall” had become a kind of slogan even with Germans in civil life who did not know much of what they were talking about. From von Moltke, “the Battle-thinker”, to von Bernhardi, “the Hate- breeder”, was a very long step, but the step had been taken. It would, I think, be hard to find a better example of the crude inversion of an ideal than von Bernhardi’s deliberate choice of Goethe’s words (words written with such noble intent) to justify his philosophy: “Only he deserves freedom and life who is compelled to conquer them daily.” No wonder that a few years later came another perversion, a new kind of slogan: “Only through hate can the greatest obstacles of life be overcome.” It is difficult to describe this growing spirit of hate that one felt creeping into everything, like a poisonous vapour. “What is the matter with Germany?” we foreign residents used to ask each other. “It isn’t a scrap what it used to be. Do you suppose it really does mean war—one day?” Few of us, however, seemed willing or able to define the trouble; yet we knew that the trouble was there, lurking,—animosity, jealousy, bitterness. When the Kaiser, referring to the rapidly growing navy, said: “Our future lies upon the sea , and “We need this fleet to protect us from arrogance”, we knew, of course, that his words were directed primarily against England. But arrogance! What about von Bernhardi’s words: “ We are the greatest civilized people known to history”; or Georg Fuchs’: “We must mould the entire mechanism of modem civilization, as it ought to be, in German form”, and many other such sentiments, loudly expressed? What about the Society for Promoting Germanism? What about the Colonial Association, with its ill- concealed aim—world domination? What about the German Navy League which had over one million members, whose sole object seemed to be to excite the entire nation by propaganda of all sorts,—through the press, by lectures, by sermons, by specially arranged excursions to different ports where ships already afloat or still under construction could be inspected? Von Tirpitz, the most dangerous mischief maker in Europe”, as he was described abroad, was, of course, the prime mover in the Navy League, and through its organ,’ Die Flotte, the public nerves were made to quiver at the merest mention of the “British Menace”, which appeared to loorti like a black cloud on the horizon of the national destiny. Then there was that angle of life which came under the general head of WAR MEMORIES 39 “Kultur”, that word of horror, so associated in later years with all that was most bestial during the War; for Kultur did not mean just “cultivated tastes”, “higher education”, etc.; it meant the whole mentality and morality of the nation; all that the nation stood for,—in fact, its “ideals”. “Germany means culture,” said the Kaiser, and, parrot-wise, the whole German world repeated: “Germany means culture.” And they really thought it. So self- hypnotized had they become that they found it difficult to admit that any other nation had made serious contributions to the civilized world; there was an astonishing lack of sympathy, or even ability to see noteworthy progress outside of Germany. This was so, perhaps more especially, in the matter of science; anything worth while could always be traced to German influence, —and it always was. There was almost a ludicrous side when it came to literature, for everyone, from Shakespeare to Bernard Shaw, seemed to have sought and found his particular source of inspiration in Germany,—that, of course, accounted for each one’s genius. But their own contemporary drama! Many of us who were foreign residents stopped going to the theatres, so utterly vile had most of the plays become. From the early Hauptmann to the later Wedekind, was too much for us. The most pathological subjects were the most popular; suicide to escape a just punishment (and the act was always justified), murder,—everything abnormal. The world was beginning to be turned up-side-down. The German evidently hungered for all such subjects; nothing was too degenerate, and all were looked upon as absorbingly interesting phases of human psychology, which could bear and which even needed the closest, most detailed analysis. Yet all seemed to be without any elements which could legitimately recommend them, save to pathologists; and these plays were repeated, night after night, to crowded houses, from which children were by no means absent. The less said about this, the better. What was to be found on the stage, was equally to be found in most of the other forms of art or amusement. Picture exhibitions became a kind of nightmare, for you never knew what you would see. The music of the day became, for the most part, unbearable,—blatant, soulless. Public lectures, always a popular kind of “entertainment” in Germany, were becom¬ ing veritable “pulpits of hate”. Of course there were some voices raised against the growing evil. Maxi¬ milian Harden, inveighing against the Kaiser and against Kultur, all in one breath, was a most refreshing experience for us; and men like Schiffer, who declared that the form of Government most needed was “that we shall be governed less than now, ... we are in danger of being suffocated by all the love and care bestowed upon us,”—outbursts like this amused us, but natur¬ ally they did not do much toward diminishing the trouble. Then, too, there was the growing rift between the North and the South. Sober-minded men like Prince Hohenlohe (South), declared openly that Prussia cared only for the Empire in so far as Prussia itself was allowed absolutely to control it; while Prince von Billow (North), answered that without Prussia and the Prussian spirit, the Empire could not exist at all. “Prussia is a nation of 140 THE0S0PHICAL QUARTERLY soldiers and officials”, he explained, affably. Meantime, although the South ermans continued to protest that they had no intention of being converted into Prussians, the most casual observer, if sufficiently detached, could easily see that that was exactly what was happening. So the monstrous war machine continued to take shape, while little by little, and stone by stone, Germany built up, between herself and the world, at impassable “wall” of hatred and envy, which was to result for her in complete moral isolation. Systematic teaching to the effect that Germany was at ay , and must ‘fight her way out”, increased throughout the country. By never-ceasing propaganda, instigated by the State, public sentiment was raised to white heat against Great Britain especially, because ot the iron ring which she was supposed to be forging in order to strangle Germany s free and legitimate expansion. It was a most extraordinary aS o S fT h 3 T 0115 /™^ 6 °[ that arr ° ganCe 0f which the y reused England, and of a besetting fear lest their “place in the sun” should not be secured in thP T 7 edu . Cated German w hy he was so anxious about that “place m the sun . h.s explanation generally was: “You see we Germans have a IheearthT >1 Yt' W * mUSt carry our cuIture to the farthest ends of the earth, for it is the highest culture that ever has been or ever will be known and the world must be made to see this, even if force be necessary The sal¬ vation of the world really depends upon Germany.” verteTtoy^l^e^ 1 “ ** "* y °“ "" ** the W ° rld to be wha * “ —« il is ~ ■— - It did not require much sagacity to pierce the transparent mask- to recog- affimate^ th n e e m T Words ' the spirit of contempt which oneTelf “Do ^ , 6mP everythin g not German; and one thought to i™ —: like his own ^self «em .nd steady ‘‘What a splendid idea!”-and got n Vfarth^ m V; “ d TY US th ° Ught: for a few weeks in the sorinv of mnn a * remember being in London Maurier-s “An Englishman's Home’-''Is^Took Ztl ^TV " 7 ^ that the chief resnonse of ti,. „ . , °° k hack, I recall distinctly invasion” of English soil which the “ f ° reign f ay presents, was one of huge amusement. WAR MEMORIES 141 Invade England? Impossible! Ridiculous! .... Could we have looked forward a few years to those agonizing days during the retreat from Mons, how differently we should have felt. The German cauldron boiled on, throwing up to the surface first one sur¬ prise, then another. We had lived through Austria’s annexation of Bosnia, knowing, the while, that Germany was somewhere in the offing; we had raised our eyebrows at Berlin’s Russian thrust; but I think it was the Kaiser’s third and last “gesture” which shook the foreign residents still lingering in Munich, out of some of their ruts. French sympathisers, as many of us were at heart, the news of the “Panther” shocked and alarmed us, and we read with indignation of its wanderings. When, a little later, maps, printed in Berlin, began to be circulated—maps making as clear as daylight the undiminished German colonial ambition in Morocco, this being nothing less than a stab in the back at France; when, added to this, we heard that Germany was actually demanding “compensation” from France,—many of us knew that the final hour of choice had come, and it was not long after the Agadir trouble, that I packed my household gods, paid my last visit to the police, and, with few regrets, turned my back on Germany. Volunteer. {To be continued) That man is purified who , repenting for his sins , refraineth from them , saying , “/ shall never commit them again ."— Manu. DANTE SKETCHES J UST what Beatrice signifies in the Divine Comedy has concerned hosts of commentators and interpreters throughout six centuries. The very multiplicity of their readings convinced the authoress of a recent attractively printed and engagingly written little book,' that “the truth was yet to be found” (p. 4). With this statement most people would agree, while grateful, nevertheless, for any serious effort to reduce the mass of opin- .on to order, and derive from it some light pertinent to our present-day modes of thought. Dante s was very much a mind of his age-hard, therefore, for us to read easily, who know little of medieval philosophy and less of scholastic theology. But Dante was also a great poet; and his greatness lies, not merely the majesty of his creative imagination and the beauty of his verse but in the spiritual depth and universal reach of his symbols. He may be read i?miTo 7 WayS ,’- and W6 . find ln him what we seel <. His stature exceeds the limit of our ordinary vision, and if we really companion him, we find ourselves f™our n gu 7 e°s W ° r1<1 ' ^ reaS ° n ’ C ° UnSe1 ’ and divine ^nation Beatrice has been held to represent faith, grace, charity, theology wisdom Hifia 2 1 ' w dCr thC gUisC of a divinely-human woman. Miss 1 7 i Vr °| te r, 0f Her aS Wlsdom> Personified as in the Book of Wisdom and able to lead Dante to the highest good. Mrs. Baldwin, recoiling from the legendary Beatrice of flesh and blood, insists that Dante himself in t Je C JZ m °' P 3 S t0 6 eXempt fr ° m a " ™P uta tions of a love for delight f the senses averring that his love was for truth and virtue ” (p 13) Aeain he says m the De Vulgari Eloquentia that, “while others write of lovt and war. he writes of rectitude and the guidance of the will ” (p, r 4 ) Beatrice “end -7 7 ° ' mparad,SeS '' Dante ’ s mind, who was his “beatitude ” S took fle h T SlreS ' and Wh ° resembled in her person “the Word that took flesh and dwe t among us ” the “P™™.,- nr j , Ulat ascent of the soul to God had been so carefulTv ^ ’ Where the consciousness was registered and set in its proper pSf white ^ ^ tions, as well as human qualities, were subject 7 the t ° pera - classification? ^ e c l° ses t analysis and _HereMrs. Baldwin, with simple frankness, takes us into her confidence. • - O-a Ba,„ n Baldwin; C olumbla Universlty ^ 142 DANTE SKETCHES 143 r , .. " - — tjugstiuui wuuugn a weaitn f scholastic reading, which few people to-day have the energy to undertake, convinced that Dante had no vague or general conception, but that his own mind was burning to convey a great truth, if we could but grasp his meaning She gives us in rapid survey the gist of her studies, and the final synthesis to which she was brought. Her contribution has about it a refreshing absence of scholarly pedantry; and as it affords a valuable glimpse into the workings of Dantes mind, we shall use her thought to elaborate our own, offering therewith our small tribute of gratitude and appreciation. For Dante, free-will was “the greatest gift God bestowed upon human nature, for by it “we reach happiness here as men, and blessedness there as gods (De Monarchic, Book I). But free-will itself can be directed by jffT 1 a f, Wdl aS by Cither desires or reason ! and it is as the judgment directs that the will should operate. When judgment abdicates, then desires control he will, either directly, or through a chain of reasoning based on no more than the changing and dissolving premises of appetite. Dante puts into the mouth of Marco Lombardo (Purg. XVI) the wise statement that it is when we are “subject to a better nature, though free,” that a new mind is created m us. This mind the heavens do not control, leaving to us that act of creation so necessary to our spiritual growth and salvation. The need, therefore, or night leadership of the will, by a right judgment, “inflamed the poet’s soul (p. 25), and it was la mala condotta “that makes the world blind, and not human nature that in man may be corrupted.” It is Beatrice who supplies for Dante this right leadership or judgment, this better nature to which he could become, of his own free-will, subject and so have a new and heavenly mind formed in him. Beatrice “manifested herself by her counselling power-Indeed, no part could be assigned to her that so well defined her function in the Divine Commedia as that of winnowing out all evil and gathering all good loves into the one sovereign desire of his heart for his Creator” (pp. 29—30). This distinction that the right exercise of our faculty of free-will depends upon our ability to form right judgment, is not one current in the thinking of the 7 ay , 7 ISt0t ' e ,n hls Ethics defines f ree-will as “choice based on counsel,” and adds that the principle of counsel is an intellectual principle higher than our intellect. St. Augustine complements this thought with a penetrating phrase: Man by abusing free-will loses both himself and it." To-day, people confuse free judgment (liberum arbitrium) with free-will (libera voluntas) In the De Monarchic, Dante points out that the principle of our human liberty lies not so much in mere free-will, as in a liberty of judgment “which many have on their lips, but few in their intellects.” “If,” he writes "the judgment wholly moves the will [appetites: in our phrase, Kama-manas] and in no way is anticipated by it, then judgment [one aspect of Buddhi] is free; if on the other hand the judgment is moved by the will and in some way is anticipated by it, it cannot be free, for it does not act of itself, but is dragged captive by another.” There is an illuminating phrase of the Master Christ, 144 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY recorded in the Gospel of Nicodemus , which throws a wealth of light on just this distinction between will and judgment, and which is quoted here in full : Pilate saith to him, What is truth? Jesus said, Truth is from heaven. Pilate said, Therefore truth is not on earth. Jesus said to Pilate, Believe that truth is on earth among those, who when they have the power of judgment , are governed by truth , and form right judg¬ ment (iii, 11-14). Free-will, therefore, seen truly, is not “a choice based on counsel, but a choice submitted to counsel” (p. 43), for Dante had written: “The incon¬ tinent man and even the penitent are not friends of themselves; for their will is at variance with their reason. They are blind, for they know what is right, but do not act in accordance with right judgment.” So, in the words of our author: “The agent is not a will preferring good to evil. The agent is an intellect, illuminated and actualized by truth [Manas impregnated by Buddhi] instilling its power into the will. It is giving up a false freedom for a true It is the joyful surrender of a faculty which may lead to death, to a vision which leads to truth and life. Mans freedom is not in knowing that, although he embraced the good, he could have followed the evil. His freedom is rather in knowing that in that power of choice is his bondage. Man cannot establish is own righteousness, for his righteousness is in being subject to God ” (p. 43) This is a subtile and far-reaching idea. The possession, and in the ordinary sense, the exercise of free-will is not merely a responsibility and therefore a possible source of danger, but a bondage, unless freely aligned with the Uni- versa 1 Will. The Allegory of the Divine Comedy shows Dante, his will opposed o he Divine Will, descending into Hell, and seeing reflected there all the de¬ grees of consciousness, or states of being, in which free-will in rebellion against God s will expresses itself. Led by natural reason, personified by the Pagan \ irg.1 he turns about,-reverses himself as it were-and, escaping from Hell ascends the Mountain of Purgatory, each terrace depicting an additional degree of surrendered free-will, until the Terrestrial Paradise is reached There he is capable of higher attainment; and with will purified, Beatrice, or right W- f r0 , Unded m Tmth ’ leads him nearer and nearer to that Divine P®* h ! S at on f tha Wisdom of God ( Theou-Sophia) and the Power of God (Theou-dunanns). The will thus released in Dante is of an altogether in /S (VoTl 0 280™"'" Wri , tes . Madame Blavatsky, in another context, ha/nn \w ‘ # ♦?' 5)> • proceeds from an intelligence that cannot err, for it has nothing of the material organs of human thought in it, being the superfine fmm !”T tl0n ° f tH f e hlghCSt d ' vinity i^elf— (Plato’s 'Father') it proceeds the beginning of time, according to immutable laws, to evolved he ele- entary fabric requisite for subsequent generations of what we call the human race "-remembering that by "human” the occultist meanTst Paufs heavenly man, not the half-animal, half-human worldling of to-day -or pZ^io* WaS ,n the ParadiS °' n0t the Dante 0f the 4 ™ or even the DANTE SKETCHES 145 This allegorical teaching of Dante has an interesting parallel in the old myth of Prometheus. The Titan accepts free-will, because with it and with it alone, he can become as God. Prometheus is “the symbol of finite reason and free-will (of intellectual humanity, or the higher aspect of Manas)," writes Madame Blavatsky; and again: “The Crucified Titan is the personified symbol of the collective Logos, the ‘Host’, and of the ‘Lords of Wisdom’, or the heavenly man, who incarnated in Humanity. . . . For the Host that incarnated in a portion of humanity, though led to it by Karma or Nemesis , preferred free-will to passive slavery, intellectual self-conscious pain and even torture—‘while myriad time shall flow’—to inane, imbecile, instinctual beatitude. Knowing such incarnation was premature and not in the pro¬ gramme of nature, the heavenly host, ‘Prometheus’, still sacrificed itself to benefit thereby, at least, one portion of mankind. But while saving man from mental darkness, they inflicted upon him the tortures of the self-consciousness of his responsibility—the result of his free-will—besides every ill to which mortal man and flesh are heir. This torture Prometheus [that is, we, in our higher manasic natures] accepted for himself, since the Host became henceforward blended with the tabernacle prepared for them, which was still unachieved at that period of formation” ( Secret Doctrine , 1st ed. II, 412, n., 413, 421). So, as Dante in Purgatory by Beatrice, the chained Titan, Prometheus “is released by his heaven-appointed deliverer, Herakles,” the ‘Only-Begotten One,’ and the Saviour” (cf. Isis , II, 515). Was it poetic instinct, or a wisdom in truth not of this world, that caused Dante daringly to characterize his Beatrice as resembling “the Word that took flesh and dwelt among us,” the “Power and Wisdom that opened the way between heaven and earth”? Right judgment, therefore, or the “virtue that counsels,” is one aspect, and an important one, of Dante’s conception of Beatrice; and when man’s free-will is turned towards the divine—toward “the stars,” and is purified from the coarser taints and entanglements of worldliness and self, seeking the Truth for its own sake, then right judgment (“right discrimination”) alone will admit him to the adytum of a higher fane. Marion Hale. Every man stamps his own value upon himself , and we are great or little accord¬ ing to our own will .— Smiles. \ CHHANDOGYA UPANISHAD PART I, SECTIONS 7-13 INSTRUCTION AND ENTERTAINMENT P thTinl'in ? at th ! S gFeat U P anishad was a special degree intended 1 the ™ :f 10n ° f young dlscI Ples preparing for Initiation, we shall up the naT^ 7 the tW ° COntrastln ? dements which make steaX IL in T fi F ° r th6Se disdples ’ spiritual teachmg, adily ns ng m significance and penetration, step by step including the great pnnciples of the spiritual universe; and, because they were vounv disciples, with this deeper instruction a strain of humorous incidents offering genuine entertainment for youthful spirits, yet ever their know edge forward into the great realms they were preparing to en er The parts which are more directly and evidently instmctive are all corre to haveh h a 'h 2 * v 6me ’ With Which we must ass ume these youthful disciples of thJl been \ t . h ^ ough Preliminary studies, already familiar: nLely the chants Sks= 5 :£ 5 S«S £55 Veda of Chants—consists of to'omeTg VeTLtetrf we™ Veda “ ,he se : f r s-n “trsr r *° r* ^ betSih“S^ t StteS ,1 h nd t ,PP 7 Priate *° Uke lhis rekti ™ power or ene^Sf. a ” i,testr “ i °"- <* • vitality is within the vesture or vehicle of the nil ’ kT ° f physical •herns the ,ess„„ of the yo«„g LS is1«™ 8 . J ^ ^ “ Voice here Stands™ thftype o' fhf V* Life is the Sam * chant. The also the activities of the hands and the 1>S ' Ca powers of action,, which include The Voice, then, is V ^ "SSS “ in exercised through the physical orpine ’ \ ,° re £ eneraP y> the powers distinguishes the body in life, from the bodv^ft^J 37 ^ J ' Ving f ° rCe which chant rests upon the Rig verse which furni h 7 3 1 ' Cat h ' ^ ust as the Sama its activity through theE orl?T? ^ °" ter f ° rm ' 50 the L *e finds force, and the cyanic ^ ^ harmoniously together* they are likp th^ f nc * ec * in one, and work together to ,„Jthe 4hs ° P " t! ' & “ d *•** blend 146 CHHANDOGYA UPANISHAD J47 So with the physical power of Vision, the instrument of seeing, which is e foremost of our perceptive powers. There is, on the one hand, the organ of seeing, the eye. There is, on the other hand, the living power of the sfer which is withdrawn in coma, or in death, though the physical organ remains MinV h VTr r y thC !' e ' S the physical or £ an of hearing, and there is the trnnL. ? 40 thC , reP ° rt ° f ° Ut6r thin ^ s comin K through the ear, and translates them into mental impressions, into thoughts. Then we come back again to the eye, with still more detail. There is the whiteness o the eyeball, and the brightness of the cornea, the convex lens in retinl T Hth ^ T^' W ' th tWs is contrasted the indigo-coloured . retina, beyond the dark interior of the eye; the sensitive layer which receives the image of outer things, like the sensitized film in a camera. the ’ C fl T S ° n T n W '^ in thG 6ye may be inter P re ted in two ways: either as the reflection of on esel f m the eye of another, or, better, as the sense of the act of ^” ru hm ° ne S ° Wn Cye ’ When We are refle ctively conscious of the Sciole o fh eommon^ experience is used to fasten the attention of the disciple on the perceiving self within him; and, once he has been made aware this perceiving self, his perception of it is deepened, once more by an appeal , 1S f am,h f r k,lowledge of the Sama chant. Just as there are the Sama chant, the intoned Sentence, the Formula of sacrifice, the prayer of Aspiration w V e, T' thin r I*"*"* «*. .nd diper layer, fcadbg backward and upward to the Highest Self. And, in the last analysis the That•'the '^ ° ne; the f ° rm of this is tlle for m of hat, the two songs of That, in manifestation and in withdrawal, are the two songs of this; the name of That, Atma, is the name of this So the teaching is directed to render the disciple conscious, first, of the ^theTeent Self & Unity; then to ra ' se his -nsciousnes to the deeper Self within. He is to realize that, just as hand and eye and ear are organs of the perceiving self, so that perceiving self is the organ of the thXh tf n ' • An< ? y tWS realizati ° n he attains a ^ d victory" through the perceiving self, guided and inspired by the deeper Self, he con¬ quers this world and the worlds which are below it; and through the deeper Self he wins the worlds above, the worlds of the Bright Powers. He is Lord of the song of divine desires who, thus knowing, sings the chant. I nlliVT! c 6Xt t0 Jf? St ° ry ° f the three ' who were excellent in singing the , f 1 a ?- k °? g ' l r 1S E part of what we have called the entertainment of the youthful disciples. It is a vivid and amusing dialogue; it carries a definite spiritual meaning; and, thirdly, it does not markedly redound to the glorifica¬ tion of the priestly Brahmans. e ca Shilaka and Chaikitayana are definitely described as Brahmans. The lrd person is, by implication of his own speech, not a Brahman. Another story m this same Upamshad tells us more of him: he was a Rajanya, or Rajput, he was a King, he was an Initiate. The two young Brahmans, however, and here is the fine humour of the tale, 148 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY quite cheerfully and without question accepted his suggestion of their superi¬ ority, and began an instructive dialogue between themselves. But first the one, and then the other, soon reaches the end of his knowledge, and, threatened with the loss of his head, seeks safety in silence. Then the Rajput speaks. And we may, perhaps, see in what he says, a definite purpose. His answer is, in a sense, over the heads of the two young Brahmans, but it is intelligible to the young disciples for whom these teachings were designed, in virtue of what they have already been taught. His answer is, that this World; this visible and palpable universe, rests in shining Ether, in the Light of the Logos; from the Logos it comes forth into manifestation; into the Logos it returns in withdrawal: a part, as we know, of the Secret Teaching. bo we may imagine the intuitive hearts of the young disciples lighting up with understanding. They have been entertained by a good story; they have learned a lesson of wisdom. Then concerning the “progeny” of the disciple Udarashandilya: this word as always, has a multiple meaning. First, the obvious one, of sons and grandsons; next, spiritual children, disciples and their disciples; then the future incarnations of Udarashandilya; and, still higher, the deeper layers of the Self, with their vestures, to which his spiritual life will lead him, until he enters into, and realizes his oneness with, the Supreme Self, the Eternal Then immediately follows another story, that of the poor wise man, Ushasti, and the wealthy Prince who has planned a great ceremony of sacrifice Once more, we may note, the priestly Brahmans are treated with something less than veneration. 6 The motive of the story is worked out with humorous imagination. Hail¬ storms have laid waste the fields and gardens of the Kurus, so that even the rich man of the village has nothing left but a bowl of fruit. But, with the respect which the East has always rendered to devotees, he is ready to share S"Tr u iS s r e With the needy Ushasti ' The dignity with which Ushasti refuses the offering of the water left in a half-empty drinking cup inTvividtd 6 W > Dd T atCr Whenever he desires - ^ an entertaining touch k w u' ^ Ut 111S also somethin g more. Food and water are universal symboJs for bodily and mental experience, the elements which n oS t h e a" s y ymbohzed 7 ti ICal ** ^ these « «£££ tn h tt, J, u he con,munion - The meaning in the story of Ushasti seems to be that, while he must share the common physical lot of mankind he must S' 6 c > f I* psychical life against contamination from th^mZe psychical atmosphere of the world. The devotion of the lady Atiki is Ze We need not' follo^ & charming feature of Oriental life, his nriestlv Brahm 'l ♦ 1 encounter of Ushasti with the Prince and Then follows .ho renine Loud Cta, Song, where the .hi,, dog and hi. CHHANDOGYA UPANISHAD 14c) companions imitate the priestly Brahmans singing and winding about in serpentine dance: for the younger disciples, a highly entertaining tale, but for the older and more thoughtful students, another lesson in mystic symbolism. We may remember that in Egypt, both Anubis and Set were dog-headed gods. Set was “the adversary”, the reflection in matter of Osiris; Anubis was “ the guardian of the dead’ ’, “ the preparer of the way to the other world ” (during initiation also). So, we may suppose, the process of transmutation is indicated, the circle of the dogs, and their invocation to the Divine Powers, representing, among other things, the aspiration of purified Kama and its at-one-ment with Buddhi. Since the ‘ ‘ serpentine power ’ ’ is called into activity in this transmutation, it is naturally represented here by the serpentine dance. Students of Dante will think of the greyhound in the first Canto of the Inferno , as a kindred symbol. Then comes a short passage, more easily understood if we go back to the thought of the electrical potencies of sounds. The syllables enumerated may well be the elements of magical incantations. VESTURES OF DIVINITY And so concerning the Self. The Voice, verily, is the Rig verse; the Life is the Sama chant. This Sama chant rests upon the Rig verse. Therefore, the Sama chant is sung resting upon the Rig verse. The Voice is Sa; the Life is Ama. This makes Sama. The power of Vision is the Rig Verse; the Self is the Sama chant. This Sama chant rests upon the Rig verse. Therefore, the Sama chant is sung resting upon the Rig verse. The power of Vision is Sa; the Self is Ama. This makes Sama. The power of Hearing is the Rig verse; the Mind is the Sama chant. This Sama chant rests upon the Rig verse. Therefore, the Sama chant is sung resting upon the Rig verse. The power of Hearing is Sa; the Mind is Ama. This makes Sama. And so the white brightness that is in the Eye is the Rig verse; the indigo- coloured beyond the black is the Sama chant. This Sama chant rests upon the Rig verse. Therefore, the Sama chant is sung resting upon the Rig verse. ^ And so the white brightness that is in the eye is Sa; the indigo-coloured beyond the black is Ama. This makes Sama. And so this Person who is seen within the eye is the Rig verse, he is the Sama chant, this is the intoned Sentence, this is the Formula of sacrifice, this is the prayer of Aspiration. That which is the form of this, is also the form of That. The two songs of That are the two songs of this; the name of That is the name of this. Those worlds which are below this world, of them he is Lord, and of the desires of the sons of Man. And they who sing here with the lute sing Him; therefore they are conquerors of weal th. He who, thus knowing this, chants the Sama, sings the praise of both; 15 ° THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY desires ^th^ ’r +’ v & gamS ^ worIds that are be yond that world, and the ^?7 5 = -—- S h.ni^"'fittiT° , ^ e h h " t ’ t , h “ sk »°"^ "What desire thus knowing, *«. the chantLS singa *** W ”°' aSS '£££?S2£Z TT in s r ne ,he L “” d Ch “* They said: "We 2 exi. Ten, i“ , '?*“>'“• and Pr.yahana, son „( "‘-5.W £~STh^ a c». -■ Fhavahana, son of Jv“a said” V “f ^ ,h ™ ,s ' lvei; l »e«her. Thereupon .h?rrA^.hS* W,y ‘ ^~a, b hya: "Co„e ‘Question me!” said he. “What is the resting-place of the Sama chant?” t rests m the Tone,” said he. “What is the resting-place of the Tone?” 4i rests ln ^e Life-breath,” said he. “ What is the resting-place of the Life-breath?” ( It rests in the Food,” said he. “‘What is the resting-place of the Food?” It rests in the Waters,” said he. What is the resting-place of the Waters?” They rest in that World,” said he. What is the resting-place of that World?” establish the SamHXnt on^hJheavtXwo iT^’” ^ ^ “ We the Sama chant is praised.” 7 ° r d ’ f ° r as the heav enly World firmly established, of a truth, Da^bhya is thv Sam ^ Da ’ bhya; “ Not to say, ‘Thy head will fall off-’-thvh’Z^ S * m * chant « one were now “ What is the resting-place of that World?” •<w^ eStS m thlS Wor,d '” said he. What is the resting-place of this World?” firmly establishThe^amfclJanto'!, Ihe Worid ^ " We is praised.” tne World - for as the foundation the Sama c&^r^wrxTy^ *-• head would indeed fall off!” y ’ Th ^ head will fall off! ’—thy CHHANDOGYA UPANISHAD ■ 5 i “Come then, let me know this from thee, worthy Sir!” ‘‘Know it!” said he. “What is the resting-place of this World?” It rests in shining Ether,” said he. "All these beings, verily, come forth into manifestation from shining Ether; to shining Ether they go from mani¬ festation; shining Ether, verily, is more potent than these beings; shining Ether is their highest home.” This, verily, is the most excellent Loud Chant Song, this has no end. The most excellent is his, most excellent worlds he conquers, who, thus knowing this, reverences the most excellent Loud Chant Song. When Atidhanvan Shaunaka declared this to his disciple Udarashandilya, he said: “ As long as they shall know this Loud Chant Song among thy progeny! so long will their living in this World be most excellent, and so also in that World.” For he who, thus knowing, reverences this, his living in this World is most excellent, and so also in that World,—he has a World in that World. When the Kurus were devastated by hailstorms, a certain very poor man, Ushasti, son of Chakra, lived with his wife, Atiki, in the village of a man of great possessions. He sought alms of food of the rich man, who was eating stewed fruit. The rich man said, “I have none but these that are set before me!” “Then give me some of these!” said he. He gave them to him, saying: “Drink of this water also!” “ Nay, for that would be for me to drink leavings!” said he. “Are not these also leavings?” “If I were not to eat these, I could not live,” said he. “But I can drink water at my desire.” When he had eaten, he carried what was left to his wife, but she had already received alms; so taking them, she put them away. Rising early in the morning, he said. If we could obtain food, we could gain a measure of wealth also. The Prince there is offering a sacrifice, and he might select me for all the ritual offices!” His wife said to him: “Here, my lord, is this fruit.” Eating the fruit, he went to the place where the sacrifice was proceeding. There approaching the priests of the chant, who were about to sing the opening praise, he said to the priest of the opening praise: “Priest, if thou shalt sing the opening praise, not knowing that Divinity which is correlated with the opening praise, thy head will fall off! ” In the same way, verily, he said to the priest of the chant: “Priest, if thou shalt sing the chant, not knowing that Divinity which is correlated with the chant, thy head will fall off!” In the same way, verily, he said to the priest of the response: "Priest, if thou shalt sing the response, not knowing that Divinity which is correlated with the response, thy head will fall off!” Thereupon they stopped and seated themselves in silence. 152 theosophical quarterly S_ Th en the master of the sacrifice said to him: “I desire to know thee, worthy I am Ushasti, son of Chakra! ” said he. nofable to findT h ght W °T y Sir ’ f ° r a " these ritual offices i when I was not able to find thee, I selected others! But, worthy Sir, I request thee to perform all these ritual offices for me!” q ‘ ‘ Let it be so! But let these now sing the chants with my permission • and "ufitT I ,*• lh r,r ,ds * *° ihe ™'»»»* ^«it «h”° ™.r Let it be so! said the master of the sacrifice. hen the priest of the opening praise came up to him and said: ,his Then the priest of the chant came up to him and said • “ Thnu vi * * Divinity that is!” y ueaa win tall off! Tell me, worthy Sir, what high 1 ' " F Z f the “ <*•«• ** «• Praise of the Sun „„ what Divinity that is!” * • Tel1 me > worthy Sir, Food. This fs°the Divfnity wbfa Hve by partakin g of the hadst sung the response, notknowW this n ^ TO ? the res P° nse - If thou off, as I had so declared to thee! ” * Vmi y ’ thy llead would have fallen Then follows the canine Loud Chant Srmo- mu Dalbhya, or Glava Maitreya, who went forth & fnr here , was a certain B &ka a white dog appeared. Other dogs gather’ * acred stud y- Before him “Do thou, worthy Sir, sing food for us? for we woul^eaD d ° g ' S#id: 2 SS£Z£IrZZ ^ ^ to me!” . Then, verily, as pfeste aW toT’ T °" the Watch for «*m. circle and wind about in serpentine dance ^o did the PU , nficatl0n ' Join in a ssr d ““- Th “^ - *« ££ Let us eat! Om! Let us drink! Lord of the heavenly vault! CHHANDOGYA UPANISHAD 153 Lord of beings! Lord of the Sun! Bring ye food here! Lord of food, bring food here! Bring food, bring! Om!” Now concerning the meaning of the tones. The tone Ha-u is this World. The tone Ha-i is the great Breath. The tone A-tha is the lunar Lord. The tone I-ha is the Self. The tone I is the Fire-lord. The tone U is the solar Lord. The tone E is the invocation. The tones Au-ho-i are the Bright Powers, the Host. The tone Hin is the Lord of Beings. The vibratory tone is the Life-breath. The tone Ya is the Food. The Voice is Viraj, the Radiant. The tone Hun is the undefined thirteenth interposed trill. The Voice milks milk for him, that which is the milk of the Voice; he be¬ comes possessed of the Food, and eater of the Food, who thus knows this hidden meaning of the Sama chants,—who knows this hidden meaning. C. J. Those who have true worth in themselves can never envy it in others.—- Sidney. Be that which you wish to help others to become. Let your life , not your words , be a sermon . — Ami el. ALL THAT WE HAVE IS NOT OURS W E stroll down the street, tired and hungry; it has been a lively day. The procession has passed and everybody is finding his way home. From the distance, sounds the beat of a drum; a band has left the line of march and is also going its way like ourselves. As it approaches, we step up to the curb and watch and listen. On either side of the musicians and also following, are the usual assortment of street urchins and gutter children. Watch the boys!—they swing along in proper step and time, and keep, to the accompaniment of the music, an impromptu formation which could not otherwise have been forced with a rod of iron. We follow. The boys, with wild childish natures temporarily inhibited, are held by the glamour of the uniforms and the rhythm of the march; they carry on till the last—until the “oldsters” break ranks and go into the hotels at random—and then hang around, tied by the reverberations echoing in their minds, gradually dispersing to their usual diversions until the next demon¬ stration by another orchestra at another time. ******** Somewhat oblivious of people, I walked along, heading for the entrance where we go down the steps to take our train. A beautiful shining morning, and I was coming from a very quiet, rare place—rare in being infrequent both in time and number—and in coming away I was wary lest I meet myself too soon. I passed someone who hesitated, half turned and looked; our paths were opposite; I kept going, hardly noticing, going down— “Down to the base court”- Beyond, a man on the platform; unmistakably a hard drinker—his affair; but why should he turn several shades more purple as I pass? I kept very quiet. “I must not be home before I reach the house.” I would not regard him. The train rolled in, and as I moved through the door, three youths emerged; a fragment of a remark; a gesture, advertising buoyancy. They were almost gone—almost; one gave a quick glance in avoiding me; youth has good eye¬ sight and is sensitive, and in that instant he was trapped. Leaving his friends without parting, he slipped back into the car and sat on the opposite side. I still kept steady and poised. I knew what happened: the man I passed on the street; the old soak on the platform. That young couple over there have dropped their conversation by instantaneous mutual consent, have forgotten each other as they join the youth to observe me. Several others become quiet; but I can draw the line between the quick and the dead. i54 ALL THAT WE HAVE IS NOT OURS 155 “Now be quiet, now be silent—steady—steady—Do not even think!" What were they like? Do you believe that I would dare to look at them, and obtrude my low and vulgar personality between them and what they felt and tried to understand? I could not—I could not. I knew, only; but they, like the boys with the music, just thought they knew and were silent like me because they could not say to themselves just what it was. Momentarily and interiorly caught, they followed along in perfect time and synchronism. Another stop. The boy followed me out, and loafed around with unswerv- ing attention but courteous reserve, until I caught my next train. Things were quiet; few were going and coming. I leaned back to look out. There was a party of two couples in front, out for a pleasant day. One of the young ladies slipped off her coat, and that manoeuvre brought me within her field of vision. “ Now be careful—keep on being quiet—pretend you don’t observe—silence —look out of the window.” She could not resist the irresistible prompting to see what could not be seen. Taking a book, she left her friends in a puzzled quandary, and sat to my right, a little back—she would know what it was—she would watch and see. Almost home now—almost. A rare privilege? An auspicious sign? No; on the contrary, No. A rare (regrettably) rare recognition, not of a privilege or favour, but of a standing opportunity and unceasing duty and obligation. Do we not march along in good form and proper step, with all our instru¬ ments and no music: why? How can we expect those to respond who not only need, and not only are ready for our silent rhythm and-melody, but who crave it without knowing that they do so, if we keep it all to ourselves,—that which is not ours, which was only loaned to us to be handed on to others; those who are here now in vastly greater numbers than we realize. Really now, have we any true notion of the rapidly increasing number of folk who are at this moment following paths, parallel, but not identical with ours, and from amongst whose impromptu ranks we could draw a few, enthral several, and give them what we hold for them, if they could only hear with their hearts that which cannot be spoken until we know just who and where they are ? Must all of our attention be personal preoccupation? Must that be the rule all the time? Why—why can we not let go a little now and then; and then a little more practice—why not? The efforts once started will gather impetus. We shall build on the reaction until we never , never cease to be conscious of what we are trying to do. In certain respects, there can be no supererogation. R. B. A. CONTEMPLATION AND MORALITY it as the Beautiful '* " ^ 05 the Good; he who has seen it, desires Plotinus. T T ^?s h tLS ra po“f„^vST' , *»« intermediate between the animal and the ’l* p,anet; that ;t is process. The psychic man can be tr^ncf a • ume P^ ases of a continuing man. Many students of Theosophy bdielTLrt h f keneSS ° f the s P iritual occurred in certain exalted natures and that t\ " sformatlon ha s already posed of men who have thus accomplished thfw ^ L ° dg6 ° f MaSters is com ' for every member of the human kingdom. ^ ° h ' dea " y re ^rved Penetrated the generJcontdousnels If "he* ^ “ these have a cause of joy and ^ ^ Sense ’ * ls appreciates the faith and valour of those men of r^ aVera 2 e Student fully SST effort to the spirituaI Fmnc^ thought is the such as La Sensibilite Metaphysique knd la tech nical works, best known for his very readable little treatise nfjh""* * l ° Morale > but imagination, Le Bovarysme. This title wac , e USG anc * a ^ use of the Bovary. The lower self of man is S P by Fla ^ert’s Madame that ,t is something other than that which^taltuTh t0 ^ &nd to others mg that its lies are true,—the chronic state of Mad “? * 6nds by beHev ' e image-making power of the mind which ic n T 6 Bovary - However, can be rightly used to make manifest The tue ^ by the lower ** Z S ^TL^ h ; d 3PPlied ber ^ a ^^Sse A ^ b t d0Ctrine * a -ent Epicurus, Jesus.”' His theme is the “inner Morahty: Pythagoras mortal personality of man 111' beenmetmlrT* I ^ Signifies th ^e ype. He believes that “this inner event ha^T^T* 0 ‘ tS spiritual proto¬ hearts of isolated individuals and bv ,>< <- a [ eady been realized in the perpetuation of human societ^ ” T Ie st or ^ O ^ the cause of the consummation. Pythagoras and Epfcu^TaTl '*** to Such a forerunners of the Master. P are re P rese nted by Gaultier as 1 Mtrcurc de France : May i, J une i t i S( 156 CONTEMPLATION AND MORALITY 157 e essays seem to be the fruit of metaphysical speculation rather than of mySt ‘ Cal expenence - Even a friendly critic will find many statements with which he may find it impossible to agree. There are passages which recall a poem in prose, in which the protagonists bear the illustrious names of the ancient sages, but speak the thoughts of the poet. The style is often so involved that the translator is forced to take the risk of paraphrasing in order to render what he believes to be the author’s meaning. Moreover, Gaultier has an exasperating habit of using old words in a new sense, and of leaving the reader to discover this sense without assistance. Nevertheless, the present reviewer ventures to proclaim these three articles as among the most remarkable works of the kind that have been brought to his attention. aultier believes that if true human morality can be realized, “it must be by the increasing intensity, in every human heart, of the contemplative sense, ot the power to enjoy things without possessing them, and by the multipli¬ cation, in the bosom of the species, of men endowed with this power.” This true morality is not to be identified with any particular code of ethics, for reasons which he makes quite clear. He calls it “aesthetic morality”, the term aesthetic”, as he uses it, being practically synonymous with “con¬ templative . What is needed is the birth, or rather the recovery, of a real moral sense, which will of itself control our activities as infallibly as an animal’s instinct guides it along the lines of action proper to its species. However, such a sense must be acquired, like every other sense, by effort, by triumphing over resistance and inertia. For the present, there can be little hope that more than a few can perform the miracle. But if those few succeed, the race will e preserved, as it has been preserved for centuries by others who gained their measure of success in the past. Such an idea cannot be unfamiliar to students of Theosophy who have heard of the appeal of the Masters for Chelas- or recruits who are willing to separate themselves from the mass of the race and to perfect themselves for the sake of humanity. Gaultier makes this general definition of morality, that it is “the sum total of the modes of being that condition the life of a species.” Every species has its proper morality, and the lives of its members are moral in so far as ley conform to the purposes which are characteristic of the species In the lower kingdoms, “Nature works directly and, as it were, blindly towards the determination of useful reactions.” However, man-that is, elemental man persuades himself that it is his prerogative to intervene, to decide what is useful, to assign to his destiny ends of his own choosing, and to attain them by means that he has arbitrarily selected.” In other words, by virtue o his mental self-consciousness, the human entity interrupts the direct cur¬ rent of “purpose” in Nature, and diverts it, as he fancies, to serve his private happiness. There is ample reason for believing that Nature cannot tolerate the spectacle o a creature which deliberately tries to live for its own pleasure alone. The elemental man has, therefore, an anomalous status in Nature. He has been 158 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY disobedient to the moral laws of his species, and part of the penalty which he must suffer is the corruption of the animal instincts of his body. He can no longer trust these “to determine his useful reactions,” for he has infused into them a psychic colour which is quite alien to the healthy animal state. For example, a normal wild animal is guided by an instinct, correlated with the sense of taste, to eat what is necessary to maintain its bodily functions in proper order. In the elemental man this instinct has in general either retired into a potential condition, or it has been almost completely distorted from its original purpose by association with a psychic “complex”, with the desire to enjoy the sensation of eating and to repeat the sensation as often as possible. The conscious and subconscious purpose of elemental man may, indeed, be reduced to a confused but continuous desire to experience pleasurable sensa¬ tion, and to a corresponding dread of painful sensation. The sensation sought or feared may be physical or emotional or mental or even—in the ordinary sense of the word intellectual. The same order of motive may be said to prevail on all these planes of his life. Gaultier dwells, in particular, upon that form of the desire for sensation which is manifested in consciousness as the desire for possessions. It is assumed that one cannot enjoy a thing unless he possesses it. This may be a psychic extension and perversion of the acquisitive instinct observable in many animals. In any event, the regulation of the human acquisitive in¬ stinct becomes an acute problem whenever two or three or more human entities are gathered together in a society. The effort of such a society to prevent one of its members from taking what belongs to another, takes shape in some ethical code. We may believe that ethics is, in one sense, the first effort of Nature to correct the diseased condition which has resulted from the disobedience of men to the proper moral law of their species. Unfortunat ely, the effectiveness o an ethical code in any given society appears to be mainly dependent upon two factors,—upon the stability and integrity of the police power which enforces it, and upon the faith of the multitude that it serves their best inter- ished n °th I f 'V°° aCtiV6ly - In the P ast - when ^is faith has dimm¬ ed, the authority of the police power has decreased in proportion, for the police were men like the others. One remembers the history of past civiliza- belfeve that t ^ PP TT m the nigb t of time, because men ceased to longer t0 r6Strain their ac ffuisitive instincts any mSST haS n T d Certa ’ n danger ‘ signa, s upon our own horizon. During the wisf Tv Until qUite r6Cent times ’ the ma i° r >ty of people in he bTaZt’Zt lltt T qUeSti ° n ' that thC g0 ° d man might be Arable here, but after death would go to heaven; that the wicked man might have a wonderful time on earth, but after death would go to hell This did nit prevent men from committing crimes, though it had a restraining effect But how many to-day believe in the old-fashioned, concrete heavenTnd heU? CONTEMPLATION AND MORALITY one S •“ e *"■* Ci,ies ' ,l » «■«■»» of the decay of theologicalXthhT h T, ? ? Premely signific ant, because Moreover, in the prTent ai of be , en P aralle1 ^ by a decrease in moral faith. It is pretended that by multinlT T SClenCe ’ tb ® re ls an additional menace, be able to increase^° Self - indulge ^ men may to provide enough Jor a T to ° f pleasure - 50 a * ultimately exposes without difficulty the root of W fh'° U ° r dlscontent - Gaultier invariably developed more m P X than tTT- NeW desires are "f* them * uponS” *" - of the^moHve^wliich^nduc^thelvTO^' 31111 '^ "J ^ ** - restraint. Self-restraint h !„d Z TTT t0 Hve a Hfe of relative self- to be human in any realms! No® T n f 6Cessary - befor « °ne can begin ethical code as regards its obTective TT' be direCted against °ur satisfaction ‘°T «» average mortal has no vision w Wc™ f’ The trouble is that the self-restraint. He agrees to check himTf ° T uItlmate implication of his feels assured that in some tan m hi ° ^ certam directions as long as he behaviour. He persists in the A *1 Way ’ he W,U be warded for his virtuous of life. Preacher"!“ the end because they share it with him The t0 f ° rtlfy hls delusi °n, perhaps another, that his sensationsT/l J 7 ^ te " ing him ' in one way or life- The preachis and rlornr^ m ° re P T SUrable if b e Hve an honourable what else cLld th" Ly^ tTprovideThe' "t 0 ** 0 * right . aad . in any case, living? But ideas of what Constitutes m3n W ' th a motlve for ri ght a clear appreciation of the facts. When thT ^ n0t ahvays . based u P° n that his idea of pleasure is preferable to the A m0rtal . 1S convinced he loses his fear of punishment his moral i ^ ° f the mora l lst - and when force of habit, and he wT eX tl he will tend to lose the When he becomes representative of the m > a dangerous or useless citizen, disintegration of the society to which h hT* 7 ° f Cltlzens ’ lt; would seem that The supreme need, So re t ft T f' T* be humanity who will have the courage to admitXT^ 3 ’ the average of motives, including evT thIToT‘‘XptXbie» b TT of ordiaary human and who will undertake the labour of creatine w?/ thC m ° St ‘ vlrt uous”, kind of motivation radically different from the old ThLT-T^® 3 constitute a caste of contemblatives within th ' T lndlv iduals must gi^novco completely to the desire f„r senJi™” m, " l<,nd ' W “ Ch “ dating contemplation ii* th" Jthetic' them ” V asso- - s i6o THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY when they are so deeply concentrated upon the object of their perception or study, that they are personally indifferent to the kind of sensations which they may be experiencing at the moment, whether these be, in ordinary terms, pleasant or painful. These men have temporarily achieved, in some measure, that which the real contemplative has accomplished permanently. They have “reduced the acquisitive instincts to a point of possible co-existence.” The instincts, which are so infused with psychic elements in the average person, have been restored—even if only for a moment—to a condition re¬ sembling their pristine natural state, to “the condition of a biological necessity.” “Man has taken consciousness as a means of reforming action. He has not understood that it is an end in itself; that through the metamorphosis of action into vision the Sovereign Good is attained.” However, there is no implication that this vision is a passive state. "The joy of contemplation is the activity of consciousness exercising itself in accordance with its own nature. We find Plotinus saying that all genuine contemplation overflows into action, and that the veritable creative power in man or God impresses itself upon substance through the medium of an act which spontaneously expresses or symbolizes pure vision. In terms of the moral life, according to Gaultier, the great distinction of contemplative joy is that it is the true reward of virtue, but only when this reward is not sought. It crowns the life’s work of the hero who has finally learned to labour without thought or expectation of any recompense for lmself. Only the courage of having descended into the abyss of pain in the world of illusions, can give one access to the joy of victory.” Jr/ n f° ther , passage - Gau,tier refers to the contemplative condition as that th 2 Lw e r f e \ S ° Ul ° f the World enters into Self-knowledge through the agency of the individual Soul which is its emanation. In the experience of the individual consciousness, it is the direct testimony of its participation m a universal consciousness. “In our own heart. Brahma the Indian God, the whole of our being, awakes and dreams no more.” ******** This condition is so remote from our present dreaming state that a In™ purification of win and though, is necessary before the Can conions ness c an receive the necessary enlightenment which may then be said to descend like the grace of God. Gaultier has selected Pythagoras as a hero of the moral life, as a patron saint of those who would undertake to strengthen and to individualize their will by purification unaertake to strengthen tha?“t P he th mTt rean “ tat ° r ’ Hier ° CleS> inter P reted Master as teaching smrit ” But thif! ? ad “ nt ° f Pure P hilos °phy is the contempt i neretore, the Pythagoreans and their allies the QtmVc • .WO exercises. The aspirant mu,, p„ ri(y bis „t„re by ae ls”tTS CONTEMPLATION AND MORALITY 161 to participate in the lower man’s desire to reduce life to the repetition of pleasurable sensations, and by the repression of those actions which gratify only the lower man; and he must reflect upon the majesty and splendour of the Divine Principle which pervades the Universe, and which endows it with its order and mysterious beauty. He must do these things as if he already de¬ sired to do them with the undivided force of his personality, although actually he may still feel acutely the glamorous attraction of sensation, and although he cannot yet see the inward beauty of Nature, but only has faith that the beauty is there. Faith in the reality of the Divine Principle must be sufficient for him at all times. Gradually, however, he should begin to experience a sentiment which is, as it were, the premonition of contemplative joy. He will experience a disinterested satisfaction in the thought that the essence of Nature is divine. He will undertake to do what little he can toward the awakening or strengthening of a kindred satisfaction in the hearts of others. In the ideal Stoic Commonwealth of Humanity, the philosopher is the servant of the gods and of mankind. Marcus Aurelius has excellently defined this gentle spirit: “ Let the fulfilling of those things which the common nature hath determined, be unto thee as thy health. Accept, then, and be pleased with whatsoever doth happen, though otherwise harsh and displeasing, as tending to that end, to the health and welfare of the Universe, and to the joy and prosperity of Zeus.” There was nothing sentimental, however, in the practice of the great Stoics, or in the maxims of Pythagoras. Gaultier says aptly that their moral training culminated in “the practice of courage in its most intense form, of the courage which a man needs in the struggle to dominate his own instincts.” He speaks of such heroic morality as a phase in the bosom of which develops secretly the contemplati\je sense, as under the mantle of the caterpillar proceeds the slow elaboration bf the organs of the winged butterfly. By its mediation is realized an ascesis , a spiritualization and a sublimation of the human type.” The Stoic thus becomes, in his degree, an individual , unifying his powers and subjecting the lower instincts to the commands of his will. He can be trusted with new powers of vision and action which would consume an undisciplined personality. “In Stoicism, the metamorphosis is already accomplished. The caterpillar is provided with wings, though it has not yet cast off the mantle, so that it still preserves the appearance of a worm. The law of irony presiding over all great activities so orders events that, to attain the greatest tension, the creature must ignore the end toward which it is moving.” One recalls the words of the prophet: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” Gaultier continues: “A supreme courage implying renunciation of joy, and acceptance of the most cruel evils, brings him to the summit of the mount before a vision of beauty which overwhelms him with a bliss which he has not sought. Renunciation, courage, Titanic valour, are all converted into a positive instinct which triumphs over the lower passions by opposing to them THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 162 a passion yet more strong. By some metaphysical alchemy, the moral tem¬ perature, raised to its highest degree, is resolved into a new state wherein the joy of victory replaces the consciousness of tense effort.” ******** The Pythagoreans and the Stoics illustrate the way to liberation through purification of motive, through sustained self-control, through the acceptance and service of an ideal. Another method of releasing the soul from the obsession of the desire for sensation, was taught by Epicurus. There is no necessary contradiction between the moral catharsis of the Pythagoreans, and the mental discipline of the disciples of Epicurus. The differences between the two schools are differences of emphasis, and, in the same nature, the two methods may supplement each other. Our word “epicure” suggests an unflattering view of Epicurus; but whatever may have been the delinquencies of his followers, we have the testimony of a disciple that “the life of Epicurus, by comparison with that of other men, appears to us, by virtue of his gentleness and moderation, to have been a myth.” It is true that he identified the quest of truth with the search for the principle of happiness; but the happiness which he presented as the goal of the philosophical life, was the faculty of contemplating the nature of things with an ever-increasing, disinterested delight. To prepare body and mind for the exercise of this faculty, seems to have been the main subject of his instruction. Far from advocating a refined self-indulgence, he imposed a severe and unremitting training upon mind and body, preparing them to undergo without passion or strain the pressure of circumstances, favourable or adverse. Although it is necessary for the human being to experience both pleasure and pain, he insisted that it is equally base to be the slave of either. Unfortunately his doctrine has come down to us, as Gaultier says, more amputated than the marbles of antiquity. One can only surmise the details by reference to such fragments as the following: “False judgment and error are always caused by what is added to experi¬ ence by the mind. “It is not the stomach which is insatiable, but our false opinion concerning its supposedly indefinite capacity. “ Believe that God is an incorruptible and blessed Being, and attach to your idea of Him nothing that is inconsistent with incorruptibility or with bliss. “It is not continued drinkings and revels and feasts of fish or such things that make life pleasant, but sober contemplation which examines into the reasons for choice and avoidance, and which puts to flight the vain opinions from which arises the greater part of the confusion troubling our souls. “It is a superlative joy for the soul to investigate those things which have been the causes of its greatest sufferings.” Gaultier describes the method of Epicurus as “the culture of images.” The maxims given above suggest that the philosopher sought the source of human evil in the misuse of the imagination, and that he believed it was possible, by changing the habits of the imagination, to convert it into a cause of human CONTEMPLATION AND MORALITY 163 good. In Epicureanism the power of the will is not stressed as in Stoicism. For this reason it lacks the splendid inspiration which shines through the writings of the great Stoics. It has, however, its own version of truth which may be examined with much profit. “Behind will stands desire,” and desire is intimately connected with the image-making power of the mind. Epicurus seems to have begun his teaching by emphasizing the need of releasing the force now stored in wrong or useless mental images, before one can hope effectively to turn his full attention to the building of images of truth. Gaultier comments as follows: “Epicurus distinguishes between desires which are both natural and neces¬ sary; those which are natural without being necessary; and those which, being neither natural nor necessary, are the products of a vain opinion.” Since the actual “quantity” of desire available to a man at any given moment is limited, it follows that the spiritualization of desire is possible only in so far as the lower forms of its manifestation in the mind are enfeebled and destroyed. “Epicurus refuses the power of procuring happiness to all desires which are not both natural and necessary. ‘Even the pleasure of the body,’ he said, ‘cannot increase once that the pain caused by some need is suppressed; it can only diversify itself.’ ” A first step towards checking the waste of psychic force would thus be to discover certain limits defining the natural and neces¬ sary pleasures of bodily life, and to refuse to pass beyond those limits. A second step would be to hinder the mind from brooding over the memories of physical sensation, and from anticipating the pleasure of repeating the sensation. Again, the powers of imagination are expended in irrational fears,—fears of death, of physical or mental suffering, of God or man or beast. There is a normal instinct warning an animal of danger; but when the danger is past, there is ample evidence that the fear completely disappears from the animal’s consciousness. It would be the same for man, if he could learn to check the momentum of the natural and necessary emotion of fear, for it is this uncon¬ trolled momentum that converts a physical and momentary sensation into its psychic counterpart, and prolongs an instant of pain into hours and days of unnecessary and idiotic suffering. By the repression of useless desires and fears, two objects are accomplished. First, the imagination is released from the habit of serving the purposes of the psychic, elemental man. Secondly, the force of the imagination can be re-integrated upon a higher plane of thought. In his commentary, Gaultier describes this transfiguration of the imagina¬ tion as “the conversion of sensation into vision.” The sensuous, elemental nature is externalized, so that in the vision of the soul it appears to be as objective as the events of the phenomenal world which are known through the physical senses. Gaultier refers, of course, not to an -astral but to a moral experience. It is a continuation of “the same evolution and the same meta¬ morphosis which, at the beginning of the epic of life, are expressed in the passage from sensation to perception, and which transmute a body reacting 164 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY to contact alone, into a body sensitive also to form, colour, sound and odour. Joy and sorrow become a single term subordinate to a higher psychic activity. 1 hey are progressively objectivized and converted into objects of contem- plation. It would seem that the Epicurean training was finally concentrated upon the effort to attain to a selfless vision of Nature,—to such a vision as was ie prerogative of the gods. Epicurus used to spend hours in quiet recollec- ion before the images of the gods in the temples, as if he felt that he might ereby develop in himself a deeper sympathy with the divine way of viewing the world. The great poem of Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, illustrates to • 1 de ^ ee of disinterested fervour a genius, disciplined by Epicurean prin¬ ciples, could be moved through meditation upon the processes whereby the Universe is periodically brought into being and destroyed. He loses his self-concern in the contemplation of the unfathomable depths of space and ,™. and ta«s to communicate to others this „„ se of Ubera P tio „ “ Eni l 7 J! h f Z u mS6 f T ° a S ' milar sentiment ma y be attributed a saying of • P th p S W K Ch S ? mS ,, t ° C ° nVey the vef y essence of what was oldest and purest uVan szzi the worid ' and * - at -*»— nnK° WeVe J' ! he f EpiCUreanS ' like the Pythagoreans Ind the Stoics give one only an ideal of contemplative joy. They fail to impart the unmistakable .mpression of its hvin g reality. This living reality Gaultier finds invests aultier is not an orthodox Christian, and many of the unorthodox will find much to criticize in his interpretation of Jesus He 1 7 “'° th ' one aspect* of ,£ e believes to be the most important of all. For Gaultier the Mot • ,, man who lived contemplatively , the representative of a new’human snect ’ {homo estheticus). In the reviewer’s on,' nine r u- . species image which he presents is, at least, far removed from anTofThfoon 7 misconceptions of our time It ic neither „ c a y 1 th P°P ular n,cn.,l nor pla.itadinonc 'I, £££^2 As Gaultier describes him, the Mastpr ic i* • ■, of the ideal which was perceived as a distant ”k *7 complete expression There is in him this sa^SS&ii^S T * ^ f eat P hilos °Phers. been definitely translated from the life f • 6 centre of consciousness has I. is no, ,oy. .nd sorrows. even such as .. W. are In by ^’ 47 ^ CONTEMPLATION AND MORALITY 165 «rh“b,e'SrlT“ Thoueh I» sees them as «» «- Po¬ me meT S T‘ '* o'sp,'«“ch" h s tion inte ! f ‘ H,s pagination no longer moulds the data of sensa- • , ■ Un 1116 psych,c sha Pes; so the Universe is reflected without distortion rrt t “• ft™ = "£ it:;, sras assumes the form o, and no p„, it is unwo , thy of atten ™ W “ r ntion and co " iro1 in • the individual consciousness of thL 6 ? f P ° WerS ’ the re Petition in which are visible throughout the heightTnT dUhTNaJu^e etn 7 a ’ of the Jnenirrson 6 wft n h d h : "joy^ er ai lf wha^h^ C< has'aU^ned^nay* be Tttained^n ^me^by^others His within Ca himself PO T e h S !re ^ that kingd ° m of heaven th at is consciousness of the ficUtiou'! re h C ° VerS ^ o7;lem H pl^^^^^ ps-siss ,he “* ster «h« mirLL ,„d‘‘«“° WS * n ’ ira * b “‘ by ll “ precedes When others possessed the active germ of his faith, he could heal them as if at this point of their nature, he could blend his power with thefr aspTation Communion is the image of transfiguration.” Gaultier meSST^ THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 166 the significance of the Master’s refusal to legislate, to impose external force, to intervene to change the world. The Master sees truly that which men are, and that which they may become; and since his vision is dynamic, it is poured into the world as an incentive and inspiration. But there must be a deliberate response of faith to the inspiration. There must be the living belief in the aspirant’s heart that the miracle of selflessness is as possible for him as it was in the beginning for his Master. Gaultier recognizes what was, perhaps, the supreme manifestation of the Master’s selflessness. This was the almost inconceivable self-control which prevented Him from using his acquired knowledge and power to remove himself from the torments of bodily life, by annihilating in an instant the consciousness of his body. There are stories in the East of Adepts who have yielded to such a temptation and who are known as Pratyeka Buddhas. The veritable Buddha, the true Master, stands firm. “His faith in the unreality of the world is a sign that the hallucination is abolished and, at the same time, conditions the persistence of his contemplative vision. When it is sufficient for him to raise his finger to bring the fiction to an end, he will beware of making this little gesture which would restore life to the phantoms.” It would be a tacit admission that he is still attached to sensation, that the great regeneration has not really occurred, that his power to draw others by faith has, in fact, never existed. There is an enigmatic statement by Gaultier which he does not clearly explain. He says that “Jesus does not come to save the men of the future at the expense of the men of the past. ... He saves the past as well as the future. Such is the consequence of his renunciation of the idea of realizing happiness in the temporal order.” It would seem that Gaultier has touched here a very profound truth which is blindly disregarded, as he says, by “the eternal pharisees, the so-called idealists, who pretend to be working for the happiness of a future humanity . . . and who sacrifice, with an appalling lightness of heart, all those who have been miserable in the past.” It may be remarked, incidentally, that these futurists do not always hesitate to sacrifice also the men of the present, as in Russia to-day. It will be easier for the mind to solve the supposed difficulties involved in this problem of saving the past, if we accept as hypotheses at least two of the major doctrines of the Eastern Wisdom. The hypothesis of re-incarnation suggests that the Egos of the future races may, indeed, be embodied in the men of the present, and that they have certainly been embodied many times in the races and nations of the past. The other hypothesis suggests that the Master, Jesus, is not the only human being who has accomplished the great transformation, and that he is a member of a Brotherhood of perfected men all of whom are working in various ways to bring mankind as a whole to the portals of initiation through which they themselves have passed. Stanley V. LaDow. WORK A T the last T. S. Convention something was said by one of the speakers about the very commendable desire on the part of many of the younger members to “help in the work of the Movement”; their frequent and pressing offers; their evident difficulty in understanding that, for one reason or another, they were not yet qualified to work, save in certain specified and perhaps very humble directions. What was said amounted to this. a member with, for instance, a perfectly illegible handwriting, will wonder why he, or she, is not given even so modest a task as addressing envelopes; or someone else, with an irrepressible love of talk, will feel that he, or she, even though not “trained”, can at least be trusted to slip newly issued Quarterlies into their covers, ready for the post, without at all realizing that incessant talk during the process, may not be agreeable to other people who are in the room at the time, and who may wish to remain quiet. The advice given by the speaker to those of us who are aspirants for “work”, was that we should fit ourselves forthwith. The member who wished to address envelopes, but whose illegible handwriting made the task far beyond him, should direct his energies toward acquiring a “copper plate” calligraphy. The member who felt somewhat aggrieved that he could not be trusted even with preparing Quarterlies for the post, should ask himself (or some kindly disposed friend and comrade) why this was, and having found that the trouble was not with his hands, but with his tongue, should waste no time before disciplining that part of himself which proved to be the source of the difficulty. I, who was fortunate enough to attend Convention; have wondered, however, whether the full meaning of the speaker was grasped by us all, for there is an angle of it which I am sure the speaker himself would not wish to escape notice. It is this. When it was suggested that if we want to address en¬ velopes, it might be a good plan to fit ourselves by first learning how to write, that suggested “fitting” did not mean that we were expected to acquire the desired knowledge by practising in some other department of the work of the Movement, or by “cutting our teeth” on “the work” at all. If we find that we are inclined to be noisily talkative, we cannot expect that the peace and quiet of a work room or office shall be endangered, in order that we may begin “the practice of silence” there. Our old, bad habit might at any moment break loose (as old, bad habits will), and with annoying results. The point, as I saw it, was that we were advised to prepare ourselves by means of our daily occupations, unconnected with any special departments of ‘ ‘ the work We must all have endless opportunity for this; at least we can create the opportun¬ ities if they do not come unsought; and once a limitation is recognized honestly and simply, the roughest part of the road is generally behind us, while I have always found that when we are ready to assume responsibility, responsibility never fails to come our way. 167 168 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY I am constantly struck by the manner in which our weaknesses will fmstrate or neutralize our assets, and I think this fact has such an important bearing on our perfectly legitimate desire to help in “ the work ” that it should give us much serious food for thought Take for ’ h ° d i a e C nt Ur a a n C d ^ couiited^upon TSZeo 7 * ^ ^ * constant breaches of'confidence^ his other valuable q ua.ities, be trusted ^ sureV^ literal sense, a. all. »SSnit”^LT. T *"* “ " to «* impossible if an incessant buzzing is point* on' ' ^ , W ° rtby tbat name —is for work are being made, or directions given - for lisTer^nP^' ""If 1 '- 6 SUggeStions matic hearing of spoken words; it is as we know f g ' S u JUSt the auto ’ understanding of what is wanted, and if we are toZt'aT ^ mtUlt,Ve inner (any impression upon which we can safelv W | 1 g 1 any lm P re ssion of this interiorly. Success is impoS ?**«>*** ^ a„ the paraphernalia incident to to address envelopes? What vou w ,, epts before we are allowed fection which I, forone, shalLnever beTable'to^cram into th^ ° f P - I am past my prime as it is.” To which beim^f l ‘-' S S1 ” gle lncarnat >°n- am speaking of the hierarchy not of ohvsical 8 ^ youn 8 est ” myself (I all means, let us ‘cram' in Si we cL ~T 1 W ° Uld answer: “% hope. Oh, and I must not forget humilitv- T' eXpenence ‘ P atience and forget that. Then, some fine day we shall oerha 66 ” 18 T ' S t0 ° Pr ° ne to ment, be asked (mind you, we ourselves shlli^u mUCh t0 0ur aston ish- petulantly at closed doors)-we shall be as td to addr' 1° f° ° n banging Quarterly envelopes, and with ‘steam up ’ too Our l & mountain of at last because all this time we shall have been ‘ fit til Wl1 ' haVe COme most, but noticed by those who never fail tn * 1 g ourselves - unknown to Again I have wondered, however if we * Ch eagerIy for our Progress.” quick to think that because noTne urges us ^ "* n0t muc » to ° ( envelopes” being, of course used ficuraf f \ hC P m address >ng envelopes all “work for the Movement ” Do w P ? y) ™ are therefore cut off from fact, there is an inexhaustible amount o/workT that ’ &S a matter of kind of work lying at our very doors and far mor °Y> C fu’ ^ m ° St im P° rtan t hope to accomplish.? I speak, of course, of work up™ WORK 169 the supreme task of our incarnation. All our T. S. literature resounds with an imperative call to inner work; to the battle which must be waged against our lower natures; all religious books too, of course. "Who hath greater combat than he that laboureth to overcome himself?” asks the Imitation. Through The Gates of Gold is full of this warrior spirit, which cannot be taken too literally, I am sure. “ To put on armour and go forth to war, taking the chances of death in the hurry of the fight, is an easy thing; to stand still amid the jangle of the world, to preserve stillness within the turmoil of the body, to hold silence amid the thousand cries of the senses and desires, and then, stripped of all armour and without hurry or excitement, take the deadly serpent of self and kill it, is no easy thing. Yet that is what has to be done. The man who wars against himself and wins the battle, can do it only when he knows that in that war he is doing the one thing which is worth doing.” <4 Mr. Judge assures us in endless ways that we do not have to rush madly and boldly out to do, to do.” “ It is not what is done, but the spirit in which the least thing is done for Them, who are all, that is counted.” This would necessitate the giving of our very best at every moment,—and would that be easy? Would that not keep us busy? Many years ago I heard Phillips Brooks say, in that quick, convincing way he had, that the most tragic death¬ bed utterance he was ever called upon to listen to, was when the dying man, with a peaceful sigh, whispered: ‘‘Well, I have done my best. We are so quickly satisfied! . What if, at the close of the day, when we are sitting alone, reviewing the work of our waking hours since sunrise; what if, at this time, we could see our Master enter and, standing there, look us straight in the eyes and ask: “ Child, have you done your best to-day ? Have you thought your best thoughts only ? Have you given the best of your efforts?” Do you think that most of us, feel¬ ing those searching eyes upon us, could answer: “Yes, Master, I have done my best”? There are many ways in which we can work, and the inner will help the outer, as the outer (when it is given us) will, in its turn, react upon the inner. Again we may turn to the Imitation as the unfailing guide and inspiration which it is, and there we come upon the heart of the matter: “For God weigheth more with how much love a man worketh, than how much he doeth. He doeth much that loveth much.” There are some lines of Kingsley’s which I used to like, and used often to repeat to myself when I was young—in physical years—and they come back to me now as being very appropriate. They are good words to act upon: “ Have thy tools ready— God will find thee work.” Younger Member. ON THE SCREEN OF TIME T HE Student sat down with a sigh of immense relief. “For eight unin¬ terrupted hours”, he said, “I have been in ‘the world’. I have talked and I have listened to people—nice people who have no idea that there are insides to anything, or that there is a purpose anywhere. Busi¬ ness, travel, art, literature of a sort, politics,—all kinds of things were touched upon, skimmed, dismissed; no insides to anything, and everything on what I can only describe as a high treble note of semi-hysteria, as if to say, ‘How gay we all are!—with laughter less than a sixteenth of an inch deep, and everyone such good friends. No: there were men as well as women; but at that stage of evolution, the effect of the sexes upon one another is simply appalling. Perfectly virtuous, doubtless, there is none the less an irresistible ‘urge’ to show off, to shine, to pirouette, to attract attention, admiration, envy,—Lord knows what not. In any case I am exhausted, and want to hear about something real.” “I have a plan”, the Philosopher volunteered. “Instead of talking at random about whatever occurs to us, I suggest that on this occasion we com¬ bine to give the ‘Screen’ a sequence. The Student has had a slight overdose of ‘ the world ’; he needs a much larger dose than he has had; it is just possible that a sufficiently nauseous dose would save his soul alive.” The Student laughed. “Delighted, I’m sure,” he said; “ but what is your plan ? ” “Briefly,—that we look at the world to see its darkness; that we look at the world to see its light; that we look at the other world to renew our thirst for it.” Then, without further preamble, the Philosopher continued: “ I have with me two or three items from the daily press to which I should like to call your attention. They could be duplicated, doubtless, from the press of Europe; for the difference, alas, between Europe and America is constantly becoming less. They are innocent little items, likely to pass unnoticed by subway travellers—and most people, nowadays, belong to that category, either actually or figuratively; but, theosophically considered, I believe you will find them as significant as I do, as instructive as I do. All of them are taken from the New York Times of July 2nd. Here is one: the Reverend —, preaching at the Community Church, New York (I know nothing about him, except for this sermon, which, however, entitles him to a sort of immortality),—the Reverend-declares that ‘God is a democrat, and by this very fact the death warrant for all institutions which are undemocratic has been signed. To call God a king is a slander upon the universe. . . . Equality, liberty and fraternity are the three great attributes of God.’ Beautiful to know the mind of God like that! In pre-war days, it was the German Emperor who talked of ‘ God and I ’; sometimes, in care-free moments, of ‘I and God.’ They were brothers and equals, and the meaning of ‘liberty’ was well understood,—between 70 ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 171 Them. Even in those days there were some who laughed at the foolish man’s pretensions; though others did not laugh: they feared, knowing that lunatics-at-large are dangerous, and that the German Emperor was a racial mirror, rather than an entity. But now,—ah, now, we have passed to better things: the German Emperor was right, not wrong; the only trouble with him was, he was not right enough. He had forgotten, in his image of the Godhead, to include the Reverend-, and the congregation of the Community Church, and, I assume, me, and my cook, and the entire swarm of ‘me-s’ over all this ant-hill of an earth. God is the perfect demo¬ crat; like a Presidential candidate, he is ‘one of the boys’, one of us. Such a comfort; so ‘homey’, to be assured that God is like that. You don’t agree? You would prefer a God who is wiser than we are. Well, well: there is no pleasing some people. Stop and think. Remember those sacred words: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,—I beg your pardon; I had forgotten that this reverend gentleman puts Equality first. In either case, if you accept his revelation, you need never look up any more. Nothing, anywhere, is any better than you are. And Liberty; surely you must appreciate that! Come to the window. We overlook a New York street. Yes,—there it is! See that automobile; the driver has his arm round his neighbour’s waist; he is gazing into her eyes; he is steering by those stars. Liberty, sweet Liberty! There is a child playing some twenty yards ahead. Hush! Let nothing interrupt the free and flowing play of Liberty. Dead? I think not. It seemed to me that angels lifted her out of the way. Poor child, to have been robbed like that of a democratic funeral, of a fraternal and free funeral, with her mother and father and her own little ghost embracing the driver and his girl as champions of human Liberty,—God, the perfect democrat, embracing all of them, indiscriminately, for luck. “Now we pass to another theological pronouncement. This time it is the Reverend-, S. J., who speaks. ‘If Christ were sitting in one confessional box and a priest in another, the priest could blot out sin just as effectively as could Christ. . . . The mere presence of a priest causes sin to be blotted out. You may ask why a priest’s power does not always have the effect that it should. It is because you do not co-operate with him. You must pray for him, pray that he will be kind and patient toward all.’ That we should be kind and patient toward him, seems to be taken for granted; and I don’t wonder, in such circumstances. Kind! Why, the obvious thing to do would be to feed him and flatter him, and to pray to him every few minutes so as to have passing sins blotted out before they accumulate. Talk about modern conveniences! But the real joke is the reaction of the Protestant clergy. Some would froth at the mouth at the Reverend Father’s ‘pre¬ sumption’; others would turn green with envy: if only they could believe all that of themselves; in any case, if only they could voodoo their Parishioners into believing it of them! Competition, without that, simply is not fair. Perhaps that is why the other Reverend gentleman, seeking a solution— competition for souls (or for purses?) being very keen these days—hit upon 172 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY the idea that every man, worthy of the name of democrat and therefore free, can be his own absolver. Rather clever, come to think of it: no need to pray that a priest will be kind to you; just be kind to yourself. You and God being equals, I should be prepared to argue that absolution must be contained inherently within the sin. They need a student of Theosophy to work these things out for them. “Seriously, is it not strange how little the world changes? Symbols, perpetually mistaken for realities; priests, perpetually confused, above all, perpetually confusing themselves—sometimes honestly, sometimes dishonestly —with Deity: the old vice of priests in every exoteric religion the world has known. In Egypt, Babylonia, India, ancient America—wherever priests have functioned—the vanity, ambition, and the cowardice of men, have com¬ bined to create this dreadful superstition. “Now for another item. Governor-, of one of our more important States, speaking to the congregation of a Presbyterian Church, declares: ‘The world is waiting for America; it leaps to hear every blow America strikes. America shines among nations as the little child that shall lead them. Just as God gave humanity a new chance when he directed Noah to build the Ark, so He gave it [nota bene, humanity, not the Ark] a new chance when He put it into the head of an Italian navigator to discover America.’ ’’ The Student was literally writhing. “For Heaven’s sake!” he exclaimed; “Keep your horrible world to yourself.” But the Philosopher continued relentlessly. “Do not worry”, he said. “That Governor will be re-elected; regardless of his politics, he will be re¬ elected. He knows his people. A speech like that is irresistible. They could see the world leaping (now don’t be unsympathetic; you are a good American; try to see the Governor banging the lectern as he says, ‘every blow America strikes ’: it is quite moving if you approach it in the right spirit). ’ ’ “Stop,” said the Student. “I must speak.” “No,” the Philosopher answered. “It would be impolite. I have not finished; and I don’t trust you,—you might be rude to the Governor. Seri¬ ously”, he added, after a moment’s pause, “it makes me glad I am not the Lord, what could you do with a people like that! If an earthquake were to wipe out half of them, the other half, picking itself up, would feel superior because history had recorded nothing like it; if they were to hear a great voice from heaven saying, You infernal idiots’, or more seemly words to that effect, they would ‘come to’ with a vastly increased sense of their own im¬ portance,—God having singled them out for this distinction. I am glad it is not my problem.” What to do about it would be beyond me”, the Historian interjected at this point. “I have tried to handle individuals who were similarly consti¬ tuted, and they have twisted even their moments of collapse, when there was nothing left of them but negation and despair, into proof of their real superiority,—by saying perhaps, as in one case, ‘I told you this would hap¬ pen!’ But I do think that, if you were looking for causes, the American ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 173 environment suggests a contributing factor. You may remember a passage in Hawthorne’s Marble Faun , following a description of the Capitol at Rome, and the view from one of its windows. He says: ‘We glance hastily at these things,—at this bright sky, and those blue distant mountains, and at the ruins, Etruscan, Roman, Christian, venerable with a threefold antiquity, and at the company of world-famous statues in the saloon, in the hope of putting the reader into that state of feeling which is experienced oftenest in Rome. It is a vague sense of ponderous remembrances; a perception of such weight and density in a by-gone life, of which this spot was the centre, that the present moment is pressed down or crowded out , and our individual affairs and interests are but half as real here as elsewhere .’ Re-reading that passage recently, reminded me of a man, now dead, whom I knew quite well, years ago in Europe. He had been born within the shadow of York Minster. His father, who loved and revered every corner of it, brought him up to do likewise, constantly pointing out its beauties and telling him its history. He was carried back to the days of ancient Rome, when York was known as Eboracum; to the great deeds of Kings and Barons; to battles which had decided the fate of peoples and dynasties. He was saturated in traditions of heroism and of sacrifice, and lived in the midst of their monuments. When he grew up he became a lawyer and moved to London. Instinctively he took an office near Westminster Abbey, and practised there all his life. His profession, instead of serving him merely as a means of livelihood, was seen by him as yet another expression of the spirit and purpose of old York Minster, and of the Abbey which outwardly had taken its place. Was not the law a monu¬ ment to an immemorial past, the living embodiment of what Romans, Saxons, Normans, and the long line of English, had suffered and had achieved? The result was that his thoughts always ran on big and noble lines. His personal affairs were important, of course; but they were overshadowed by the greater importance of the ever-continuous and ever-unfolding drama of which he was privileged to be a spectator, and in which he, though to an infinitesimal degree , was privileged to participate,—the drama of the world’s life and prog¬ ress. He was not an astronomer, but, for recreation, he loved to read and to marvel at what astronomy tells us of ‘the wonderful works of God’,—of incalculable spaces, of unthinkable periods of time. Nothing small or mean came near him. Gossip would have been impossible in his presence. He would not have rebuked it; he simply would not have understood it, and his silence would have been so remote that, in spite of his habitual kindliness and geniality, the intruder would have felt himself ostracized. “I wish I had known, when I knew him, those lines (to my shame I have forgotten who wrote them): “ ‘O ancient streams, O far-descended woods, “Full of the fluttering of melodious souls!’ Unknowingly, he lived them—and he would have understood and loved them as few could. 174 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY "Do you see what I mean? Living near York Minster or Westminster Abbey does not necessarily make that kind of a man; but living in a raw ™ ntr j' without a past, is likely to promote growth along very different lines. What I can only describe as the poverty of the external world—its appalling emptiness—as, for instance, facing Brooklyn Bridge—tends very strongly to throw the attention back upon self, or in any case, to produce the opposite effect to that described by Hawthorne, and thus to give the present moment an unmerited importance, and our individual affairs and interests a prominence which is quite misleading.” "Surely”, questioned our Visitor, "if your friend felt, as you say, that he could participate in the drama he witnessed, to an infinitesimal degree only it must have given him a sense of being very small, painfully insignificant, and hive beerr?” t ”“** h ‘ m leSS ° f a man than otherw 'se he might Quite the contrary”, the Historian answered. "He was a man of tre¬ mendous energy, of great personal force. In a crowd, the police invariably T p n J7l° T 7' reC ° gnizing ' 1 think ' that he was indeed a gentleman, in the old-faslnoned meaning of the word, which implied, among other things, the possession of authority. * ’ -.Jlf 1 « ndersta nd you”, the Student now said, "your theory is that, human nature being very much alike everywhere, and vanity being more or less equally distributed, the European or Chinaman or what not, having a couple of thousand years or so over which to spread it, is less likely than we are^o concentrate it on the present, and therefore is less likely to imagine that the W °!* m \ S , breathlessl y for his own or his country’s next ‘blow ’ ” No , the Historian answered; "you have not caught my meaning' First let me explain that I believe an American who is proud of his European descent, and who thinks of himself as an off-shoot from some European tion'on rather than as * he P^duct of spontaneous generation or special crea- „ , 7 h ‘ S Sld6, and who - ^rther, fills himself with the history and traditions and literature of his ancestral race or races,-may, in spite'of his physical environment, acquire much the same outlook on life. I should lo further or I think that an American of that kind is helped by his environment to be more open-minded than his European cousin Some f„„i- i, ronment . to ™ zsxztjzz and to iLZth never before met with ‘such readiness to listen to proposals of which he spoke* springs'frmn'tlle goldride of7££T- Z^Z tT ^ great a detachment from the past M y friendnf v t 7 * ^ t0 ° ™, d . for instanc , jtl “lis : t w,e k ^ him ,, am rt ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 175 more ‘free thought’ in the objectionable sense—more radicalism in politics and in religion—in Europe than in America; but this is the result of an emo¬ tional reaction following the Great War; it is something entirely different from the open-mindedness which you find here, and which, habitually judging men and plans and ideas on their merits, refuses to destroy until convinced that something better can be constructed. “As to your suggestion that their vanity seems less objectionable because more widely spread, I think that although there are hosts of Europeans who feel that their country, whatever that may be, is unquestionably superior to any other, there would be less excuse for them than for our friend the Gov¬ ernor, if they were not to derive some sense of awe, of reverence—some sense, too, of their personal insignificance—from the very facts and impressions upon which they base their feeling of national pre-eminence. All the things of which the Governor is most proud, are the handiwork of his own generation, —skyscrapers, huge bridges, colossal fortunes, the world’s envy; while all the things of which the European is most proud are the work of his forebears,— down to the home in which he lives, though only a thatched cottage.” At this point the Beginner joined us. Someone greeted him, asking him how he was. ‘‘I have been having an awful time”, he replied. “My desire for the spiritual life seems to have disappeared completely, while every other desire I have ever harboured seems to have surged to the front, occupying nearly the whole of my attention.” He wanted to talk about those “other desires : that was evident. But the Philosopher, at the risk of seeming unsympathetic, and realizing that if the boy were allowed to talk, it would only tend to increase his sense of identification with these “spooks” of his lower nature,—the Philosopher turned on him rather heatedly. “I have been a member of the Society”, he said, “for thirty-five years and longer. For all those years I have had to live with my lower nature, consciously; and I am sick to death of it. Now there is nothing new about yours, young man, and I am just as sick of yours, before you tell me a word about it, as I am of my own. I once heard of a man with a cancer—dreadfully far'gone—who wanted to show it to all his friends. Gentlemen don’t do that sort of thing. It s bad form. They keep their cancers and their lower natures to themselves recognizing them for what they are,—as afflictions, hideous to suffer and almost as hideous to behold. You will want to tell me, perhaps, that your case is exceptional; that your desires are not low; that they are in every way seemly; that you feel confident you could satisfy them without betraying your man¬ hood, even if their gratification should seem to conflict with your spiritual aspirations. Young man, every lower nature from the beginning of time has tried to convince its owner that it is possible to ‘straddle’; that compromise is legitimate; that you can stand still without going down hill. I am so tired of the idea that I could expire from its monotony. You have been having an ‘awful time’ you say. Let me tell you something: you will continue to have an awful time, a worse and worse time, for just so long as you continue to pay any attention to your desires. You will have a still worse time if you 76 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY nng them to me: that is, I hope so. Take them to the Morgue, my friend- Z e ,u th u re ’ and lf y ° U Cannot detach yourself from them, stay there ™ th ° Ugh W ' th y ° ur head out of the window if you value your life ” tinnpH ™ crest{aUen - “Cheer up!” the Philosopher con¬ tinued. Nothing ,s lost so long as you realize that you and your feelings ave no more connection necessarily, than a man and his dog. Remember what Judge used to say-you have been told of this often-that the way to g hi " ° f el “ ta ' 15 to P a y no attention to it; that desires and feelings , h ', h , ® leme ntals. live on mental attention, and can easily be starved to more ^ ^° Ur attention activel y a way from them! to other and more real thmgs. Occasionally it is profitable to face them down Thus if xr d rxzzL v - ° f ^ it asTsimaf ffrT" ,aughed ’~ which is what the Philosopher wanted, taking u as a signal for a judicious change of subject g “How about the Briand-Kellogg 'Pact of Paris’?” he asked seems £2?° “ but * ‘ Message of felicitation ’ to President Do'umerguTotprance 0 ” htS Of the signatories would undoubtedlv he g t . [' The ma J°nty stress of some emotional impulse or if imoelledh^fi? CUar) y under the outbreak of wholesale murder. But suppose that ^ n **? a foIIowin g an for whom fighting is a pastime_anH PP i 3t ’ arnong them, were men notorious criminals, with a record of'ho U °h S ?° h men exist; otber men, offences. Such men might say trulv that U t 6 " reaklng ’ bur K lar y and similar only when the police or some oh^! V* " their desire to kill i it is that they may have been obliged to kffTfrom m j erferes with them . I think, to imagine that men of that lr’ a essit y • It would be foolish, merely because they sign a ‘scran of oaneT g ° mg *° change their natures that „„i„„ s the s J e ,y pe "Sd ‘here Ire T m ° r ' foolish “ a «Ppose likely to do so. They will sivn_ k ■ ? some - as history proves — are with total unconsciousness of insincerity^fOT ^i* 6 **’ bUt P erha P s burglar prefers to carry on his busing ’ / bave said ’ the professional stated truly that if Belgium, in 1014 had offered ■ German y has always not have been killed: instead, they tould hLe haTthT^T’ BdgianS Would lowed and digested as subjects of the Kaiser StUl l H ^ bglng swa1 ' should do any harm,—that is so lonv « tv, ' ’ 1 d ° n * see why the Pact tinues to bolt his doors and windows keeps PeaCe ' lovin K householder con- his sons how to shoot.” ’ P h ammunitl on dry, and teaches ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 177 “Aren’t you unduly pessimistic?” our Visitor asked, evidently rather shocked. “My friend”, the Historian answered, “do you mean to tell me that Russia, if the rest of Europe were unarmed, or were known to be defenceless against some weapon of destruction discovered by Russian chemists,—do you mean to tell me that the Soviet would not regard it as a ‘sacred’ duty to overrun Europe, and America too, for that matter, so as to impound us within the Soviet fold ? Do you not realize that a nation with a ‘ mission ’ is as dangerous as a wild beast? Germany had a mission,—to spread Kultur; the Saracens had a mission,—to spread the doctrines of Mohammet. France owes as much to Charles Martel as to her heroes of the Great War: though many people seem to regard that war as if it had been the first,—an exceptional aberration from ‘normality’! Can you tell me of a ten-year period in the history of the world when war was not being waged somewhere,—either about some¬ thing, or nothing at all?” “ I confess I don’t remember any wars during the ten years preceding 1914.” “Well,” said the Historian, “the Russo-Japanese war did not end until September, 1905; there was a war in Zululand in 1906; Nicaragua was at war with Honduraj and Salvador in 1907; Tibet was at war with China from 1910 until 1912; Italy declared war against Turkey in 1911; Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece and Montenegro were at war with Turkey in 1912, and in 1913, there was the so-called Second (actually, the Five Hundreth or so) Balkan war. Prob¬ ably there were several more, but for the moment I have forgotten them.” Our Visitor smiled with the rest of us,—rather appalled, I think. How quickly we forget; how slow to learn! “Has the time come,” the Engineer now asked, “to say something of the world’s light,—following the Philosopher’s suggestion? It is not easy to escape from the world’s darkness. Since the daily paper, even the best of them, has become a business enterprise, and therefore has made itself sub¬ servient to the law of supply and demand, we are compelled, in order to know anything of what is happening outside our immediate circle, to swallow our daily dose of ‘jazzed’ fact and eccentric incident, and to disentangle from these, as best we can, something genuine and significant. ‘Jazz’ bands, I am told, are in the habit of ‘stepping up’ some air by one of the great composers; of ‘interpreting’ it to suit the curiously deformed ears of those who pay to listen. If, for my sins, I were present, I should try to disentangle the sub¬ stratum of original melody from the horror of its interpretation; and, in exactly the same way, a reader of the daily paper, should he desire truth, must ignore nearly everything he reads for the sake of the underlying echo of reality. The general public wants the ‘high spots.’ This means that it has an appetite for murders, suicides, divorces; for the latest vulgarity of the latest millionaire; for the ‘highest price’ ever paid for a Romney or a Rembrandt, a cabbage or a caterpillar. It means that nothing is ‘news’ unless it deals with the calamitous, or with the extravagant, the outrageous, the abnormal. Many modern books are written for the same class of ‘con- i 7 8 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY sumer.' No worse mistake could be made, however, than to judge the world y noisiest and most conspicuous elements. Behind the scenes in all brahisT Pe ° ple Sufficient,y en dowed with self-respect, if not with fx n n Th r p “?!, icity ' r wh °" **» *«<«.« no, sssas sssr “- - -- se $££■& ™ d sss to India a, Sief o Iwff H"T”«“ P ™“ “nd Princess of Wale, dally now. wto „ mu “ h .n j?'«T •** everyone. Espe- out of I„di,J,“ “ Sing to rr"” 1 ““ eV “ « coming the more spiritual significance of that amaS ^ ° T Wh °’. m Spite of missin S for the best he could see in if-q non i * a • countr y, m ar *y case looked arities. studiedXn " h 1,7 ' *** to their peculi. with an JlllVZ^ST sympathy. A man of keen intelligence, »s many do to the 'many myatorieaTnjndia’ S5, ‘Z says U ctnnof T“' by myself to shoot. The ground was famdiaV^ 1 ^ 6nt 0ut m the even ing There was a large lake where I harl f i ** )ut !t was aP changed, punt with a paddle I g 0t ^ and nadZ^ TfZ ** ° n the ' ake was a little green promontory On it bv theed *' A bank of tbe lake to a Kiri. I asked her what the name of the .aZ ^ E m ° St lovely But she laughed and shook her head and said Zi ^ where her ullage was. on the opposite bank and walked home r Hng * P a ddled on, landed I could remember every detad of Te n, ^ and had no fever. Kiri, and a few days later I went back to the laL fiVt^h ^ **“ ° f the and no sign of a punt, and no one had ever seen a like 1 WaS n ° lake bourhood. Hallucination? I do not think™rt'° rapunt ln the neigh- India of what we in England would call the ^ ^ S ° much in open mind, and I think that if we lived SthTTZ that 1 haVe an existence—m a region of divination magic and Stence ~ and Perhaps a better "S^iug of Britt, rui, h, te£ =££ -^mputiou. had „ nce ,,, ited one of which had been a man-eat-pr i ^ were looking at some tigers, would happen if the British left IndiT 6 nend aslced Sir Dinkar what removed ail bamo" “ "** would happen if yoa truth of this statement so evident tr . garden, was the reply. The and anything of its peoples but whi f ny ° ne wh ° knows the history of India formers' when lecturing Af * 13 pers,stentlv denied by Indian 're- what Sir Walter relates of that c A'r/o • * S ratker more tba n confirmed by part in the GreZwa r youS itot ^ ^ Pertab Si "S b . whose lies in the fact thatTtZth MoslZ T Half the P ° int ° f the st °”’ of India; and Sir Pertab was a Hind h ,° “* aupposed t0 the fire-eaters generous, kindly. However- ‘Sir Pertah'l Z hC WaS travelled - tolerant, at a farewell dinner Lord cZn f COme Up t0 Simla to be Present we left, and ^ the n ^ ht bef ^ of his hopes and ambitions and on Af l UP v- ° “ the mornin K. talking Moslem people in India. I denrf-nt ,, ,, -' S ambl t 10ns was to annihilate the friends known to both of us. “Yes 6 ” he^Zt hZ* ? lentioned Mos lem much liking them dead ” ’ d ’ 1 ' kmg them to °- but very men, wtTh TomTfsTpnVtCand an elucak *T &nd ChiValr ° US ^ place he writes: ‘I say after careful mm 1 ucatlon to associate/ In another « great , p,„ ple J ,„y „ T7 e “ Th ' “* K * Sl ”” ins * re P“>»Pa independent as the Pathans nnf ^’i “* n0t n ° ble ' as the Rajputs, they wi„ beat all three^^ ° f ^ Pu ”^ ^ word of money [is] far awav from JL artlsans ’ or as Wlts -' 'All thought or land, not long ago the talk of mm, P reoccu P at »ons of the Rajas. In Eng- and nota bene, ye modems delight to annoLce yZpotrr y ] r h U av Cann0t T* ° f ^ W6alth ' >'° U wealth, still less boast of his fortune • He ZtoS 3 Raja talk ° f Ws most striking of all the Raiout rinVfc TJ Z ln some res Pects the Sesodia Fateh Singh, legitimate heir to rtT/A AIaharana of Udaipur, the of the great god , 4 ,va To t hVp r Rama ' the vice -^ent fortune to meet him in Udaipur he * ’ ^ thC fCW Wh ° had the good golden silence, and the most voluble // nd ' ans ° f that tune ' believed in talkative in that gracious and noWe V1S '/ rS SCemed disinclined to be secret of these I often tried to think out the i8o THE.OSOPHICAL QUARTERLY “I could quote interminably. It is a delightful book, and reading it leaves a delightful impression of the author. I believe none the less that I, for my enjoyment, and he, for providing it, equally deserve censure. I believe that both of us have been contaminated to some extent by standards less noble than those of our youth; certainly less noble than those of the Rajputs,—my reason being that he writes about men whose hospitality he had accepted and whom he knew intimately—Maharaja Madho Singh of Jaipur, for example— in ways which, though kindly, would not have pleased them; and that he seems to feel that, because they are dead, it does not matter. I realized, almost with a shock, that if I were an Indian Raja and were to read The India We Served , I should feel the deepest respect for the author’s unselfish work for India, and for his many gifts and qualities, but that I should not want another white man as a friend: for are not the best of them likely to write books, and to tell things which they know only because I had allowed them to come near me? Without any question, Sir Walter’s motive in writing it was unmercenary and unselfish, while in many ways it will do good, not only by helping ‘the youth sailing East,’ as he wishes, but particularly in America, by removing many misconceptions. None the less, and in spite of Rudyard Kipling, who urged Sir Walter to ‘make a book’ of his diaries and recollections, I am sure that the Marquis de Soveral chose the better part. You may remember that he was Portuguese Minister in London for many years, and that he was perhaps King Edward’s most intimate friend. There was no one in England worth knowing whom he did not know or might not have known. Yet, after the Portuguese revolution in 1908, which impoverished him, and King Edward’s death in 1910, Soveral preferred poverty and the obscurity it entailed, rather than to enrich himself by writing his memoirs, as he might have done; for to him, confidences were sacred—even when those from whom he had received them had passed away. In that respect, in any case, he lived and died a grand seigneur. “You may think it mean to find fault, after enjoying the result so unre¬ servedly; but surely it is our duty, as followers or would-be followers of those ‘most perfect gentlemen,’ the Masters, to proclaim their standards even while admitting to our shame, as I admit in this case, that we lamentably fall short of living up to them. My enjoyment carries with it its own condem¬ nation. It would not have been half as great if the book had not been so personal. Yet it cannot be repeated too often that nobility of thought and action is and always will be the only foundation upon which chelaship can be built, and that the least departure from it is a disgrace. Journalism which, for the most part, is the quintessence of vulgarity, has corrupted literature, and our own taste, to such an extent, that there are very few makers or readers of books who are not victims of its poison.’’ “What you have been saying,’’ the Engineer now volunteered, “reminds me of a promise. Let me preface its fulfilment to this extent: the man whose heart is given to painting finds either beauty or ugliness everywhere; he thinks and feels in those terms. In his case, unfortunately, he is likely to limit his ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 181 interest to appearances. The man whose heart is given to chelaship finds e" her chLsWp or its opposite everywhere, and draws from both, unending lessons In Ws case, appearances, no matter how beautiful, can be regarded only as veils concealing greater beauties; and because = h6 ' ashl J , ^°^J “ “c^a^de clearer,-possibly by contrast but often quite directly P Not long ago a friend whose heart is thus centred, came to me enthusiastic over a recent volume containing selections from speeches and addresses delivered by Rudyard Kipling between 1906 and 1927. entitled TlZof Wor 7 s 'Read that passage,’ he said, ‘and for the love of Heaven 1 thatTt l quoted in the "Screen” for the benefit of some of our younger members! I promised to do so. The passage was ^ at Winchester College during the second year of the war. A nfl ® ra " 6 ® beine dedicated to the memory of an old Wykehamist, George eci , LTctiof And this is what Kipling said to the boys of Winchester as he con- '“tl’nooSwh.t.v., his physical disabilities, or however meanly he may think of himself, let no one dream for a moment he will not be needed, and needed! in the new order of things. Hi, dot, » to prepare hmisel now This is harder for him than for the combatant officer, since an officer woTk is continually tested against actual warfare. ["There are, of course. Tib distinctions in o„r case.- my .Head broke in, “because never ceases and a member is either combatant or nothing. ] The men of the second line _the civil reserve that will take over when the sword is sheathed—have no such check, nor have they the officer's spur of visible responsibility. Their turn comes later. Till it comes they must work on honour that they may be ready to uphold the honour of civilization. They have not long to wait. In a few years some of you must be working with ou Allies at the administration of what may be left of Central Europe, w you will have to invent new systems to meet new conditions almost as swift y L during the war, new weapons were invented to meet new forms of attack. I sav in a few years, because the youngest captain I know is twenty-one, IheYoungest I have heard of is nineteen. And so it will te1 on1 the civil ade. The war has given the youth of all our world a step in age-additional seniority of three yearn You may say-though your relative, are more likely to think tiftat your youth has been taken iron, you. I prefer to put it that your mantod has been thru,, on you early-*, the .worths pomb ™ youme, for it then not according to the measure of your years, but to the measure of our world's great need. You have seen and realized the very things which ten felt would befall A, far as hi, short life allowed, he ordered “ he might not be overwhelmed by them when they were upon ” “ man, of you too will die-but he died knowing the issue foTwhS £ died. I. I we,, to die for one's eoun,,yr_.ven the 182 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY is also necessary that, so long as he lives, a man should give to his country, as George Cecil gave, a mind and soul neither ignorant nor inadequate. “It was easy enough to see why my friend wanted that passage quoted. He had brought the book with him, and had handed it to me. Glancing through the pages, I noticed that he had marked this statement: It is by the things that We take for granted without word that we live.’ This also, though elementary to a student of Theosophy, struck me as admirably stated, and as always needing to be re-stated: ‘ Remember always that, except for the appliances we make, the rates at which we move ourselves and our possessions through space, and the words which we use, nothing in life changes. The utmost any generation can do is to rebaptize each spiritual or emotional rebirth in its own tongue.’ ‘“It is an admirable book, full of wisdom,’ commented my friend—always either enthusiastic or disgusted over the last he has read. ‘ It pictures, though of course unintentionally, the very foundation of chelaship: loyal service, faithful comradeship, nobility of motive, steadfastness of purpose,—the standards without which no one can be counted as truly human.’ “ It is a joy to think and to speak of such things,’’ said the Student. “Your friend’s concluding comment recalls something that I read recently about Queen Victoria, whom it is rather the fashion nowadays to treat as a stuffy old thing, devoid of imagination or other merit. The Empress Eugdnie, talk¬ ing to Maurice Paleologue in 1912, of the days when she and the third Napoleon took refuge in England after the war of 1870, described Victoria as ‘the most devoted, the most generous, the most helpful of friends,’ adding: ‘You could hardly believe in all the delicate attentions which she heaped on us, during the first bitter days of our exile. She continued to treat us as sovereigns, just as when we were the allies of England. She said to me one day: “You no longer have the sovereignty of power, but you have a still higher sovereignty—that of misfortune ( malheur ).” ’ Later, in 1879, when Eugenie was a widow, and when her only child, the Prince Imperial, was killed in Zululand, Queen Victoria rose to such genuineness of understanding and sympathy that, to honour and console the mother, she erected a statue to the Prince in the Royal Chapel at Windsor, among the tombs of the English Royal Princes. Now I say that a woman who was capable of that, and of Vous n'avez plus la souverainete du pouvoir , mats vous avez une souverainete plus haute encore , celle du malheur —not only proved herself great of soul, but by that single phrase, and by the generosity and nobility it revealed, proved, in anticipation, that she lived in a world unknown to her critics, beyond their comprehension and their reach. Her nature is as foreign to theirs, as Abraham Lincoln’s beautiful simplicity is foreign to the artificialities and perversities of the men who disparage him.’’ “That was splendid of the old Queen,” the Ancient commented. “All nobility that is worthy of the name, comes down from above, and therefore carries with it a touch of inspiration, a suggestion of divine simplicity. You remember, I hope, this incident during the retreat of the ‘Contemptibles’ ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 183 from Mons. They had been marching or fighting, as I remember it, for three days and nights, without sleep and practically without food. Outnumbered two to one in guns also—they had narrowly escaped being overwhelmed by the right wing of the German armies; staggering in retreat, many of them wounded, in groups of twos and threes and twenties, along the main road through the central Square of Mons, with shells bursting everywhere,—their surviving officers did all they could to rally them, but with scant success, for they had reached that stage of exhaustion when men are deaf and dumb and blind. Then it was that Tom Bridges a Colonel I believe—seeing a toyshop on the Square, and, behind its broken window, a toy drum,—seized it, began to beat it with all the air of a trained performer, and, marching up and down, mak- ing a fool of himself for love s sake, rallied those half-dead men and turned them once more into a weapon for King and country and for France.” The Ancient paused. Then, in some curious, indescribable way, isolating himself from the rest of us until he seemed utterly alone in space, he said: “Dear and wonderful Lord, my Lord, I know what happened when Tom Bridges died. You met him, and you took him in your arms and blessed him; and there came a protest from someone or something not far off—‘his sins, his sins, his sins’; and you, furious, turned, with ‘to Hell with his sins,’ like a living flame from your heart. And Tom Bridges went to his knees at your feet, sobbing,— for he had not known, 0 God, he had not known,—you; and now your kind¬ ness; he could not endure your kindness. But you, hearing only that drum in the Square of Mons, wrapped him in the folds of Paradise—the soldier’s Paradise—where comrades greeted him with cheers and laughter!” It was almost too much for one or two of us. The Ancient’s imagination, linked perhaps with some former experience of his own, had moved him deeply! and had carried him—or so it seemed to us—within measurable distance of the truth. Yet the Recorder felt obliged to utter a warning. “So far as I am aware, he said, “ ‘Tom Bridges’, as he was popularly known in the British Army, is still alive, and has become a very important and prominent person in the service of the Empire.” “Thank you for telling me,” the Ancient answered. “I hope you are right, partly because we need such men in our midst to-day,—more so than ever perhaps; but partly also for the chance you give me to bring out the deeper truths involved. First, that time in that world is very different from time as we know it here. Paradise necessarily contains the Past and the Future in what seems like an eternal Now. If I anticipated by ten or twenty years, it makes no difference: what will be, was. In terms of earth-time, many a man, in deep sleep, has been lifted, or indrawn (whichever you prefer)*, by the Master-soul who loves him, and has walked in ‘the land of the leal’ for a moment which there seemed like an eternity,—to recall no more, perhaps, on waking, than a sense of immortal youth, or of a joy transcending words! Second, what is ‘death’? It is the abandonment of the body, and although! as a rule, it is a painful and distressing process, that is because we struggle against it. There were thousands of men, during the Great War, who, in THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 184 one supreme moment of living, abandoned their bodies, and thus, in the true sense, experienced ‘death’ as it should be experienced: not as an agony, but as a triumph,—and who are still alive. They had dropped all concern for, all attachment to, both the body and their personal interests. Have you forgotten the words of Claudel, the poet, quoted at the Convention of 1927 • ‘And then, at last, there where his spent body bends and where his will hesi¬ tates and ebbs,—he sinks his ship beneath him, and passes onward, on the wings of passion and desire.’ Something greater than his own will carries him, and he becomes, spiritually, as a child in the arms of his Father, though perhaps behaving in this world like a lion at bay. . . . We need above all things to free ourselves from a mechanical view of time and space and causality. So, I repeat,—I know what happened when Tom Bridges died,—and someday, he will know too. “What he did during the retreat through Mons has often struck me as the English equivalent of 1 Debout les morts!’ Curious, how national psychology differs, and therefore how necessarily different are the ways of heroism. General Ludlow, sitting on the parapet of the trenches under fire at Santiago, reading Light on the Path aloud to encourage his men, is another illustration of the same thing: totally different, but exactly the same in spirit. “It seems to come to this,—as conclusion to all we have been saying: we are the children of our Master, whoever that Master may be,—Christ or another, and whether known to us personally or not. Out of the Darkness of life he called us, that we, though still in darkness, might witness to his ight. It is a light, not only of mind to illumine darkened minds; not only of hope, pointing from despair to worship: it is the light of a most human and most loving and most valiant heart,—the heart of a father in the heart of a King. And of a King long forsaken; of a King who has turned his back on Paradise that he may stand between his people and their doom; who, unseen, unrecognized, unthanked, forgotten, spends himself like water that the world may yet be saved; who answers everywhere the cry of a soul for pity, the cry of a soul for help,—but who, giving, for ever giving, must find in that his sole reward, since blindness cannot see, and each man’s uttermost attention is riveted on himself and his little sorrows, on himself and his little needs. Surely it is for us to remember and never to forget; for we have been called—not because of our merits, but as proof that he, in this world, is well-nigh destitute. One of the Kings of Heaven, here he is less than a ghost. Should this not give us zeal, passionate desire, one-pointed determination to work unfalteringly that he and his equal brethren may be known and loved and obeyed? First, in the nature of things, we must fit ourselves to work. Merely to talk about the light, without possessing it, brings it to scorn, and the name of Masters to scorn. Tragically often that has been done, and not always with good intention; for if our motive be to listen to our own flow of wisdom, the motive is not good. Yet to be fit to work, does not mean to be perfect. It means knowledge of our own limitations, both intellectual and moral; it means deep and sincere conviction, of the will even more than of the head,—the honest ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 185 conviction which can come from one source only,—a genuine and cons an effort to obey the best and highest we can see. If we do that, always thin ing of it, and always trying, for their sakes, to see more truly and more nobly, they will supply the rest. We shall help without thinking we are helpful, and may hope that, in time, by our forgetfulness of self, by our sense of one¬ ness with our fellows, and by our love of the Masters’ spirit and purpose, the light of the Lodge, even in this world, will find place in which to shine. T. Postscript: A valued English member of The Theosophical Society is good enough to write us: “. . .the statement in the Screen of Time [Theosophical Quar¬ terly, July, 1928; pages 39, 40] about the failure of our Broadcasting Cor¬ poration to transmit the speeches at the celebration at Ostend of the tenth anniversary of the British attack on Ostend and Zeebrugge. It is true that we did not broadcast the speeches on that occasion, but the reason given by a Belgian newspaper, and quoted in the Screen [the Engineer informs us that his quotation was taken from a “Special Cable” to The New York Times from Brussels, dated June 3rd], was not the correct one. I have my facts direct, and I can only ask you to believe my statement that the reason was quite different.” The Recorder is most grateful to our correspondent, as it is the foremost wish of the Quarterly to state only the facts at all times. It is regrettable, in this case, that we are not in a position to give the facts, except in the form of a negative. ^ N \ LETTERS TO STUDENTS February 23rd, 1907. Dear- I go back many times to the pleasure of our visit to-last year and of meeting so many of the members there. I do not want the acquaintance which was then so pleasantly begun, to sink into forgetfulness, and as it is not likely that we shall meet soon again, you must pardon me if I write to you occasionally. What we all need is greater earnestness. We do not maintain a sufficiently sustained attitude. We have periods of exhilaration, almost of exaltation, and then we drop back into our low daily level until something happens to raise us up again. We need more steadiness, more poise. There are several things we can do to achieve this end. Of course there is always meditation. We still have no idea of the power of meditation. Indeed one of the Masters has told us that, in so many words. But I think the most fruitful way to attack the problem is bv endeavouring to raise the level of our daily average. It is this daily average that really determines our spiritual condition and our progress, not our higher moments of exaltation. Now the best way I know to raise our daily average is by adopting little practices, making little habits, which will give tangible expression to our devo¬ tion and our earnestness. Suppose we have a habit of lounging in our chairs. Let us determine that we shall sit up straight. Or suppose we cross our knees. Let us determine that hereafter we shall not cross our knees. Suppose we are usually cross or short-tempered at breakfast-time. Let us determine that we shall make a special effort to be sweet-tempered then. There are hundreds of things like this which we can take up, one by one, and do in a spirit of devo¬ tion, with very marvellous effects; for, while the thing itself is small and of no particular importance, the fact that it makes us think everv few minutes oi our aim in doing the thing, is of very great importance. , '' Such little observances as these help us enormously in much bigger/ways, for we rarely sin deliberately; and if we had our attention directed to higher things at the time of temptation, as it might be if we were trying to. keep one or more of these little observances, then the chances are that we should decide rightly in the important matter. Anyhow it is the first step toward continuous meditation, and is immensely valuable from this standpoint. It keeps alive that spirit of earnestness and devotion which makes it easy to do and be good. Please remember me to all my friends in-, and with best wishes to yourself, I am, 186 Sincerely, C. A. Griscom. letters to students 187 and push to them. . . i t wi , " • - SOme sort of vigour and go -mbe, straight on ** t0 ** ^ loyalty to Judge and the principles which he ' W ° mUst reme mber that a nearer duty than any vague Sa of the! T ^ esented and suffered for, is Societies. . . . to it.—always at, thiog * “ ,ry "'« 10 ero “ * bnde. before we come 1 d0 not beI ' ev e we appreciate and*urMerstandV*t't lT ^h” 01 * intere sting. even the drama; but the deep er mat^n T, *" d art a " d ^nce anS influenced in even a more marked manner Tn?it s h^Th ^ been Lor instance, I am convinced that much of the that ° Ur Vlsion fails - sees all over the world, is directly traceable tn^th 18, ,° US revivaI - which one even believe that such a thin* as the senaA 7°. ° f ° Ur M °vement. I France was made possible by the work of HP °r the , Cburch and State in opened up, and keep open, centres of * H ' 7 B ' and her folI owers. We °f the Lodge can use; sometimes, perhapTmost oft^^ Which the members -selves. They have the means to do tW. ^ unc °nsciously to our- years ago, because of the lack of a basis a CartV'' "u lm P°ssible forty which they could work. ’ Upadhl ’ m the world, through -£^ 3 ^ £££53 S' -f *«* arc c„,^ y are ,ew ,h “ ““ ,d and will do incalculable harm if it shoukfhan eXpreSS10n of this ne w spirit, That is the trouble with great spiritual „ h pP ® n to get the upper hand, an expression of their dark side which ,° Vements - Ther e must always be much of its power and inLnce from theT P* ° f **" WOrk and d ^e the travesty. I suppose it is Z snZ , 7 ^ SpintUal force - of which it is limited in its power for good. It cannot iiP 0 ” th<2 Lodge is so strictly changes, until the world as a whole is abk to on. " f^ ° F bring about forces which are liberated at *he°s e ame a tte° ^ ^ C ° nquer the °PPP*te can so * inStrUments *>r such work; we and that, I think, is now L e 0 f our m" t ^ US Whether We know * or not the day we should have the conseiousThoughT dUtl6S ' Each h °ur of hat the Masters can pour force th oujh me and soT Am 1 acting •» 1 " TC A ” 1 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 188 influence? Such a thought will keep us from many an unworthy action, " Wi.T,U to occupy to. how silly it is to spend out .toe whether we shall have one kind of a by-law or another. What earthly or heavenly difference does it make, provided our name or our inwc enable us to do our work? . What does matter and what is really interesting is that there “ abroad in the world, stirring things up, making them fluidic, ready fo g - And it is for us, and for others who have our high ideals, to see that the chang , when it does come, is what we would wish it to be. With kindest regards, I am, Sincerely, C. A. Griscom. April 3rd, 19‘3- Dear-- Your mind does not need sharpening. We do not progress through our minds or understanding. We progress through carrying into effect, m detail in our lives, the teaching given us. We always know enough. You know far more than you put into practice. ... _ ,, Any reading can be spiritual reading, if we do it right. Even the news¬ papers may be read for knowledge and ammunition for the Masters work. You should try to do any reading in this spirit. Do not read merely for dis¬ traction. Many people use reading as others use drink, to forget themselves and what they call their troubles for a while. Remember that our distance from the Master is measured by our unlikeness to him; our closeness by our likeness. If you wish to reach him, be hkehim. Do you think he ever has envious or unkind or critical thoughts? When you have them take them to him, say: “Master,-has hurt my feel¬ ings. I hate her”: tell him just how you really feel. I think after one or two trials, you will be so ashamed of your feelings that you will not have them. . . . It has been said that one way of conquering suspicious, jealous, envious thoughts, is to- try to realize that we actually are all the things that we suspect people of thinking us to be, and that we are much worse in ways they do not imagine. If we feel that we have been left out of something because we are not worthy, face that fact, and try to realize that it is true that we are not worthy, and that it is only by the Grace of God that we are ever allowed to go anywhere or to do anything,—not because we are fit. Cultivate humility. Nothing in life is prosaic. The meanest and simplest duty may be made glorious if we do it to and for the Master. Believe me, Yours sincerely, C. A. Griscom. The Migration of Symbols, by Donald A. Mackenzie; Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co. Ltd., London; Alfred A. Knopf, New York; price, $4.00. This volume belongs to a series, now in course of publication, on the “History of Civiliza¬ tion, edited by C. K. Ogden. It is a result of scholarly research into the universality of certain symbols, and their relation to beliefs and customs. The subject is of special interest to students of Theosophy, and they will find the facts in this book of real value. The fre¬ quent illustrations, and the detailed index, increase its utility as a work of reference. The author shows that ancient art is rooted in religious belief; the same designs are repeated in many different parts of the world, which seems to prove that they have a fundamental mean¬ ing. He suggests alternative theories to account for this; either the “diffusion theory", which presupposes that there is intercommunication, in ideas and art, among the different nations, or the theory of the “independent origin" of similar ideas in different parts of the world! A simpler explanation is the theosophic teaching of the existence of the Lodge of Masters as the common source of all religion. It is a pity that the author’s philosophy is not more profound, and that it fails to penetrate beneath the surface aspect of the different symbols. The truth is, of course, that without the teaching given out in The Secret Doctrine it is impossible to appreciate the fundamental sig¬ nificance of symbolism, or to have even a preliminary understanding of the magnitude of the subject. To those, however, who have studied that teaching. The Migration of Sym¬ bols may be of considerable service to further their investigation of this fascinating subject. S. C. m T 1 ^ Z nt ° G ° d ’ by Abraham K uyper, D.D. L.L.D., Former Prime Minister of the Netherlands. Translated from the Dutch by John Hendrik De Vries, D.D.; The Macmillan Company, New York, 1925; price, $3.00. His Decease at Jerusalem, by Abraham Kuyper; Translated by John Hendrik De Vries, D D • Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1928; price, $2.00. Dr. Abraham Kuyper was an extraordinary man. Bom in 1837 in Maassluis, Netherlands, he died in 1920 after a life of astonishing accomplishment in an unusual variety of fields. Taken for a dull boy at school, he graduated from Leyden University with highest honours, and obtained his Doctorate in Sacred Theology before he was twenty-six. Entering imme¬ diately upon an active ministry, he added to his duties the editorship of The Standard, a daily paper, representing the “Christian contingent of the Dutch nation" in politics. For twenty years he was a leading figure in the religious, scientific, and political life of his country, pub- .lshing numerous books, and writing daily for his two papers. In 1898 he gave the “Stone Lectures at Princeton Theological Seminary. In 1901 he was called by Queen Wilhelmina to be Prime Minister, which position he held till 1905. The two volumes of Meditations, here reviewed, bear witness to the intellectual fecundity of their author, since they appeared from week to week in his papers, and are refreshing because of their simple, Protestant tone. Many, therefore, who do not care for the Roman Catholic manuals, may find the restraint, solid thought, reserved yet tender feeling, and flashes of mystical insight in these, more to their taste. The first volume offers one hundred and ten 189 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 190 Meditations on the single thought from Psalm 73: “As for me, it is good to be near unto God” On page 354, Dr. Kuyper writes: “The fellowship of being near unto God must become reality, in the full and vigorous prosecution of our life. It must permeate and give colour to our feeling, our perceptions, our sensations, our thinking, our imagining, our willing, our acting, our speaking. It must not stand as a foreign factor in our life, but it must be the passion that breathes throughout our whole existence.” This expresses the theme and effort underlying the entire series. The second volume offers fifty Meditations on the Passion of Christ, quite different from anything of the kind the present writer has ever read. Some, like the fourth on the betrayal of Judas, are full of tense, passionate feeling, and move both heart and will. All have originality of thought, and slowly, simply, but with gathering force, bear their message home to the reader, constantly appealing to his own daily experience, and helping him to connect that with the sufferings of the Master Christ. One is glad to express indebtedness to the Translator for making these Meditations available to English readers, only regretting that both volumes, especially the second, are marred by many ungrammatical sentences, unidiomatic locutions, and such careless workmanship as sometimes actually to puzzle the reader. A. G. Life In The Stars, by Sir Francis Younghusband; John Murray, London; price ios. 6 d. ir Pranas Younghusband will be remembered by readers of the Quarterly not only Z* tT dellghtful books ' but distinguished, among other things, as chief of the attemn, M rT k w &SSa ~ ' 9 ° 3 ’ a " d a ‘ S ° “ 0ne of the movin e s P iri ‘s in organizing the recent of aZd f T Ever , est - This m ° st recent book of bi = makes its appeal because In contl lT T S ‘ mP t>% wide and clear Kke the starry heavens which inspired it. /dlMK wT h 8 h , e vastness of an ordered universe, it is not what Sir Francis Younghusband he r biSna irr Vu f he makes the mighty swi "e of the around unfatZZt central suns; the silent, onward sweeping of whole solar systems through the unfathomable profundities of space; the evolution, dissolution and "re-evolution of stars”- ] Zll: nm 7 ? h ': ?™ S ’^ alUng £r0m deep to dee P- and a11 °f this a "living Whole”, “held °f h r a f f f r m d , b . y Eternal Spirit ”’ every smallest part manifesting “the indwelling character of the Whole . Throughout his life the heavens at night have drawn the author h^ToftL a ZjDetrt r ^ h vt een ' 7 PktUre him ' 35 3 Very y0Ung man ’ a,one in the Infinitude ° n 3 8 ' W,nd ‘ swept spur ° f tba Himalayas, gazing into the As wondering men have always done Since beauty and the stars were one,” —and he is not ashamed to have us know that he worships as he gazes rnmmmmrn smallest part of the universe. Though the student of rZ l COnsciousness ln every rsr* * ■ T. D. Question No. 339 (Continued from July, 1928).— In what various ways can a new member of the T. S. qualify for “ active membership?" That is a term I have noticed in the Convention Reports , and it appeals to me for I do not wish to be a drone in the Society. Answer. —In order to “qualify for ‘active membership’ ” in the T. S., it is necessary to have some understanding of the principles and objects of the Society. These must be grasped first by the mind, through reading and study of our literature; then, by pondering and meditating upon them, they must be made a part of our being,—to be lived in our daily lives, through our thoughts and actions. Marshal Foch, in his Principles of War, insists upon the necessity of keeping the objective in mind. What is our objective? This was answered in Mr. Griscom’s first Elementary Article—“The Purpose of Life”—in the Quarterly for April, 1914. This purpose he states to be: “That each human soul shall be reunited to the Central Spiritual Unity, with full self-consciousness, and self-realization .” He then goes on to point out that this reunion can be accomplished only by the giving up of self,—by the voluntary surrender of our free-will to the Higher Self, and that this gift of free-will was “necessary to enable the soul to realize itself,—to become self-conscious.” Surely, if one could accomplish this through the development of positive will, one would be enabled to qualify for “active membership.” Answer. A member is ‘active to the extent to which he does all that he can to co-operate in carrying out the purpose of the Society. The T. S. differs from other organizations, in that it is an instrument of the Theosophical Movement, which exists and works on all planes. A bed-ridden cripple, unable to move hand or foot, may be a most active and helpful member if he love and devote his heart to that for which the Society works. It has been said that the purpose of the Society is to keep alive the spiritual intuitions of mankind,—and those over which we have the most control are our own. We nourish them by meditating on them, attending to them, and above all, by living them: to do this is to work most effectively for the Society. Having realized that Theosophy is the truth of his own soul, the meaning and purpose of his life, the road to happiness, he rightly longs to share this great discovery with those he loves. If he make the mistake, as most beginners will, of trying to do this by talking about it, bitter disappointment awaits him. The result is always the same—the antagonizing of friends who might otherwise have been drawn to the Movement at some later time. The only way to arouse interest in the great truths of Theosophy is to let its light shine through one’s deeds, transforming them and him. Then others will long to acquire something that they see he has —and when they ask about it, is the time to speak. J. F. B. M. Answer. —The questioner would have been more likely to derive help from answers to his question, if he had given specific references (date, page, line) to the use of the expression, active membership. If used by an older student, mere surface activity could not have been meant, but, primarily, an ever-deepening co-operation with the spirit of the Society. This can be achieved only by inner development, brought about in ways frequently outlined in our literature under the general head of preparation for discipleship. The questioner should read Letters that Have Helped Me, vol. I (the last section deals with the subject directly); 191 192 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY Fragments, vol. I, especially pages 73-81; 90-98; articles on Ch£laship in Five Years of Theoso¬ phy; and many articles in back numbers of the Theosophical Quarterly, Mr. Griscom’s “Letters to Students" among them. Y Y. Question No. 340 .—What should one do with wrong moods? We are told to pray and to meditate, but if one be in a mood that seems like a stonewall of resistance, must one not watt for it to pass? Answer. —All moods yield to right action. They are psychic unrealities, caused by think¬ ing about oneself. Act as if the mood did not exist—which one can always force oneself to do—and it will disappear. Most moods are negative, and hence will yield to so simple a remedy as brisk physical movement, a quick walk, for instance. It would be interesting to see whether any mood would persist were it faced by a definite resolution which imposed and inflicted severe penance in case it had not disappeared by a given time. The difficulty is that in a part of ourselves we enjoy even those moods which appear to make us most gloomy and miserable. Lower nature will indignantly deny this enjoyment, but its reluctance to permit such simple action as would cure the mood, proves its wish to continue it. J. F. B. M. Answer. —What is gained by deferring prayer until one is in the mood to pray? A great servant of God once wrote to a struggling friend, “Remember that what the Master desires is your will, not your feelings." When one is so dominated by a mood, joyous or depressed, that it has for the time being walled him in,—what a splendid opportunity he has, by piercing that wall, to offer the gift of a resolute and loyal will. E. Answer. —St. Francois de Sales remarked that we should treat certain moods with in¬ difference, “as if they were dogs barking in the distance." Perhaps that advice does not seem to apply when the dogs are barking close at hand. But let us imagine an occasion when we are suffering from a particular mood. Someone offends us and we brood over our wrongs. Then suddenly something happens,—a thunder-storm or a headache or a fire across the street. When we have recovered our psychic senses after this physical interlude, we shall be surprised and perhaps irritated to find that the mood has disappeared. As a matter of fact the barking dog was always in the distance and only fancy made it seem near. It is certain that we can, by imagination and will, produce the same diversion that the thunder¬ storm provided. At any rate we can continue to try, and even if we continue to fail, our merit will be greater than if we wait for time to do our work for us. S. L. Answer. —Surely the mood which seems like a stonewall of resistance is a call to action, to start doing something about it. When the student finds himself immersed in a mood which he discovers to be wrong, then, if he be true to his best Self, he has got to fight his hardest. True, his mood may be the culmination of inattention to obvious duties, and the personal self and its indulgence may thus have lured him into such laziness that the call to action seems an unendurable burden. In that case it might be wise to invoke ambition, pride or the desire not to be beaten, and through one of them to dominate the mood—thus making the enemy act as servant of the Self which declines to be the slave of a mood. A. K. NOTICE The regular meetings of the New York Branch of The Theosophical Society will be held throughout the winter at 64 Washington Mews, (between Washington Square and East 8th Street), on alternate Saturday evenings, beginning at half past eight and closing at ten o’clock. Branch members will receive printed notices, giving the dates. This notice will also be mailed to non-members who send their names to the Secretary T. S. Out-of-town members of the Society are invited to attend these meetings whenever they are in New York, and visitors who may be interested in Theosophy are always welcome. STANDARD BOOKS Blavatsky, H. P. Isis Unveiled, Vols. I and II.doth $10.00 Key to Theosophy ... cloth » 3 - 50 Secret Doctrine. The, Vols. I and II and Index..... .doth, 20.00 Complete in one book, without subject-index volume, 7.50 Theosophical Glossary . dot ^» Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge .cloth, -.50 Voice of the Silence .cloth, . 85 , leather, 1.50 Cav 6 . Fragments, Volume I.boards. 1.00 Volume II.boards, 1.00 Volume III . Karels, 1.00 Gerard, John. Letters to Friends .• ..boards, 1.75 Hillard Katherine. Abridgment of the Secret Doctrine, .cloth, 3.00 Johnston, Charles. Bhagavad Gita .Translated. J; 2 * Crest Jewel of Wisdom, The .cloth, 1.25 From the Upanishads .paper, .50 Great Upanishads, The, Volume I.cloth, l.so Parables of the Kingdom, The .paper, .so PATANJALI’S Yoga Sutras .Translated, annotated; cloth, 1.25 Song of Life, The .paper, .75 Judge, William Q. Bhagavad Gita .Edited; doth, 1.251 leather, 1.50 ~ Echoes from the Orient ..... - 60 Letters That Have Helped Me, Volume I and II, each, .doth, 1.00 Ocean of ..cloth, 1.00 Patanjali’s Yoga Aphorisms .cloth, . 75 ; leather, 1.50 Keightley, Archibald. Theosophy as an Influence in Life paper, .20 LaDow, Stanley V. Plotinus. •••••• V.;:. paper ' #5 ° Mitchell, Henry Bedinger. Meditation, Special edition, .20* paper, .50 Talks on Religion .cloth, 1.50 Theosophical Society and Theosophy, The .paper, .20 Sinnett A. P. Esoteric Buddhism . cloth, 2.50 Occult World, The .cloth, 2.50 Walker, E. D. Reincarnation . cloth, 1.75 Idyll of the White Lotus. ••••”•;• Light on the Path .cloth, . 75 , leather, 1 . 50 , lambskm, 1.75 Through the Gates of Gold. doth * 1,20 THE QUARTERLY BOOK DEPARTMENT, P. a Box 64, Station 0 , New York. nwvoTioNAL* Bhaeavad Gita; Crest Jewd of Wisdom; Fragments; The Great Upani- shads* Letters That Have Hdped Me; Letters to Frieds; Light on the Path; The Par¬ ables of the Kingdom; The Song of Life; Through the Gates of Gold; \ oice of the Silence. Philosophical: Abridgment of the Secret Doctrine; Isis Unveiled; Key to Theosophy; Plotinus; Reincarnation; The Secret Doctrine; Talks on Rdigion; Theosophical Glossary; Transactions; Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. Introductory: Culture of Concentration; Echoes from the Orient; Esoteric Buddhimi; Idyll of the White Lotus; Meditation; The Occult World; The Ocean of Theosophy The Theosophical Sodety and Theosophy. THE KNICKERBOCKER PRESS. NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. 192 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY Fragments, vol. I, especially pages 73-81; 90-98; articles on Ch£laship in Five Years of Theoso¬ phy; and many articles in back numbers of the Theosophical Quarterly, Mr. Griscom’s “Letters to Students’ 1 among them. Y Y. Question No. 340.— What should one do with wrong moods? We are told to pray and to meditate, hut if one he in a mood that seems like a stonewall of resistance, must one not wait for it to pass? Answer. —All moods yield to right action. They are psychic unrealities, caused by think¬ ing about oneself. Act as if the mood did not exist—which one can always force oneself to do—and it will disappear. Most moods are negative, and hence will yield to so simple a remedy as brisk physical movement, a quick walk, for instance. It would be interesting to see whether any mood would persist were it faced by a definite resolution which imposed and inflicted severe penance in case it had not disappeared by a given time. The difficulty is that in a part of ourselves we enjoy even those moods which appear to make us most gloomy and miserable. Lower nature will indignantly deny this enjoyment, but its reluctance to permit such simple action as would cure the mood, proves its wish to continue it. J. F. B. M. Answer. —What is gained by deferring prayer until one is in the mood to pray? A great servant of God once wrote to a struggling friend, “Remember that what the Master desires is your will, not your feelings.” When one is so dominated by a mood, joyous or depressed, that it has for the time being walled him in,—what a splendid opportunity he has, by piercing that wall, to offer the gift of a resolute and loyal will. E. Answer. —St. Frangois de Sales remarked that we should treat certain moods with in¬ difference, “as if they were dogs barking in the distance.” Perhaps that advice does not seem to apply when the dogs are barking close at hand. But let us imagine an occasion when we are suffering from a particular mood. Someone offends us and we brood over our wrongs. Then suddenly something happens,—a thunder-storm or a headache or a fire across the street. When we have recovered our psychic senses after this physical interlude, we shall be surprised and perhaps irritated to find that the mood has disappeared. As a matter of fact the barking dog was always in the distance and only fancy made it seem near. It is certain that we can, by imagination and will, produce the same diversion that the thunder¬ storm provided. At any rate we can continue to try, and even if we continue to fail, our merit will be greater than if we wait for time to do our work for us. S. L. Answer. —Surely the mood which seems like a stonewall of resistance is a call to action, to start doing something about it. When the student finds himself immersed in a mood which he discovers to be wrong, then, if he be true to his best Self, he has got to fight his hardest. True, his mood may be the culmination of inattention to obvious duties, and the personal self and its indulgence may thus have lured him into such laziness that the call to action seems an unendurable burden. In that case it might be wise to invoke ambition, pride or the desire not to be beaten, and through one of them to dominate the mood—thus making the enemy act as servant of the Self which declines to be the slave of a mood. A. K. NOTICE The regular meetings of the New York Branch of The Theosophical Society will be held throughout the winter at 64 Washington Mews, (between Washington Square and East 8th Street), on alternate Saturday evenings, beginning at half past eight and closing at ten o’clock. Branch members will receive printed notices, giving the dates. This notice will also be mailed to non-members who send their names to the Secretary T. S. Out-of-town members of the Society are invited to attend these meetings whenever they are in New York, and visitors who may be interested in Theosophy are always welcome. STANDARD BOOKS Blavatsky, H. P. Isis Unveiled, Vols. I and II .doth fio.oo Key to Theosophy ...doth, 3 - 50 Secret Doctrine, The, Vols. I and II and Index...... doth, 20.00 Complete in one book, without eubject-index volume, 7 .50 Theosophical Glossary .doth. Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge .doth, -.-0 Voice of the Silence .doth, . 85 , leather, 1.50 Cav6. Fragments, Volume I.boards, 1.00 Volume II.. 1.00 Volume III.b 08 " 1 *- 1 *°° Gerard, John. Letters to Friends .••.boards, 1.75 Hillard Katherine. Abridgment of the Secret Doctrine, .doth, s.oo Johnston, Charles. Bhagavad Gita .Translated, •nnog^drth, i.m Crest Jewel of Wisdom, The .cloth, 1.25 Prom the Upanishads .paper, .50 Great Upanishads, The, Volume I. cloth » 1,50 Parables of the Kingdom, The .paper, .50 Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras .Translated, annotated; cloth, 1.25 Song of Life, The.. * 75 Judge, William Q. Bhagavad Gita .Edited; doth, 1.251 leather, 1.50 Echoes from the Orient . .doth, .eo Letters That Have Helped Me, Volume I and II, each, .doth, 1.00 Ocean of Theosophy . doth * Patanjali’s Yoga Aphorisms .cloth, . 75 , leather, 1.50 Keightley, Archibald. Theosophy as an Influence in Life paper, .20 LaDow, Stanley V. Plotinus. •••••• v.;: . paper ’ #5 ° Mitchell, Henry Bedinger. Meditation, Special edition, .20* paper, .50 Talks on Religion .cloth, 1.5c Theosophical Society and Theosophy, The .paper, .2c Sinnett, A. P. Esoteric Buddhism .cloth, 2.5c Occult World, The. cloth, 2.5c Walker, E. D. Reincarnation . cloth, 1.7c Idyll of the White Lotus. •••;-‘**‘*i* 't°^' J'*! Light on the Path .cloth, . 75 , leather, 1 . 50 , lambskm, 1.71 Through the Gates of Gold. doth » THE QUARTERLY BOOK DEPARTMENT, P. a Box 64 , Station O, New York. rwoTinvAL- Bhaeavad Gita; Crest Jewd of Wisdom; Fragments; The Great Upam- shads’ Letters That Have Hdped Me; Letters to Friends; Light on the Path; The Par¬ ables of the Kingdom; The Song of Life; Through the Gates of Gold; \ oice of the Silence. Philosophical: Abridgment of the Secret Doctrine; Isis Unveiled; Key to Theosophy; Ptotin^; Reincarnation; The Secret Doctrine; Talkson Religion; Theosophical Glossary; Transactions; Patanjali s Yoga Sutras. Introductory: Culture of Concentration; Echoes from the Orient; Esoteric Buddhian; Idyll of the White Lotus; Meditation; The Occult World; The Ocean of Theosophy; The Theosophical Society and Theosophy. THE KNICKERBOCKER PRESS. NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. Founded by B. P. Blavatsky at Haw Vork Hi 1875 HE Society does not pretend to be able to establish at once a universal brotherhood among men, but only strives to create the nucleus of such a body. Many of its members believe that an acquaintance . , ' , * f * •__I «Ullnii/snh<«r well _■■ ■ Many of its members believe tnat an acquaintance SPP1 with the world's religions and philosophies will ISSSSSV reveal, the common and fundamental principle underlying these, that "spiritual identity of all Souls with the Oversoul ” which is the basisof true brotherhood 1 and many of them also believe that an appreciation of the finer forces of nature and man will still further emphasise the same idea. The organization is wholly unsectarian, with no creed, dogma, nor personal authority to enforce or impose} neither is it to be held responsible for the opinions of its member^ who are expected to accord to the beliefs of others that tolerance which they desire for their own. The following proclamation was adopted at the Conven¬ tion of the Society, held at Boston, April, 1895I 'The Theosophfcal Society in America by its delegates and members in Convention assembled, does hereby proclaim fraternal good will and kindly feeling toward all students of Theosophy and members of Theosophical Societies wherever and however situated* It further proclaims and avers its hearty sympathy and association with such persons and organisations in all theosophical matters except those of government and administration, and invites their cor~ Applications for membership should be addressed to the Secretary T. S., P. O. Box 64, Station O, New York. VOL. XXVI, No. 3 VOL. XXVI, No. 3 JANUARY 1929 fAVt f>~ u! < <* B O iHEOSOPHJ Quarterly PUBLISHED BV INK THEOSOPNIOJU. SOCIETY JANUARY, 1929 The Theosophical Society , as such , is not responsible for any opinion or declaration in this magazine, by whomsoever expressed , unless contained in an official document. Rajput and Brahman in Buddha’s Day T HE understanding of Buddhism by Western scholars is in general marked by certain limitations. To begin with, they are inclined to lay too much stress on what may be called the negative aspect of the Buddha’s teaching, as, for example, when they represent that great Teacher as denying the existence of the soul, or the existence of a Divine Principle in the universe. The deeply misleading term, Nihilism, has been applied by certain of these Western students of Pali to the Buddha’s doctrine, and they have described Nirvana as unconditional death. The view that the Buddha denied the existence of a soul in man turns on the misunderstanding, and therefore the mistranslation, of the Pali word Atta, which is a softened dialect form of the Sanskrit Atma. But besides the change of form, there is also, between Sanskrit and Pali, a profound change of meaning. It is true that in Sanskrit the word Atma covers a wide range, beginning as a simple pronoun, “oneself,” the habitual personality, often including the body, and ranging upward through ascending stages of self- identification, and, in the great Upanishads, signifying the Higher Self, and, finally, the Supreme Self of all beings. A careful study of the Pali records of the Buddha’s discourses indicates that, philosophically, the word Atta had suffered from the downward tendency which affected all India after the great war of the Mahabharata, when Kali Yuga, the Age of Evil, began. As the knowledge of the Divine Mysteries was steadily contracted within a narrow¬ ing circle of Initiates, and, it should be added, as able Brahmans, intellectually rather than spiritually developed, gained a steadily increasing influence in the religious life of India, mystical and philosophical conceptions were nar¬ rowed, and grand principles were hardened into dogmas. The word Atma shared the general fate, with the result that, in the Buddha’s day, the con¬ ception had become intellectualized, and the noble intuitional ideal of the Divine Self had been replaced by an image, firmly rooted in the mind, of a “self” limited and set apart from the great total of Being, with definite 193 194 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY boundaries, even when it was described as infinite and everlasting. This steady concentration of thought on a “self” which was in reality only a mental image, gave rise to a type of intellectual egotism that was a far more serious barrier in the way to true spiritual progress than the passional egotism of the man of desire, since this more dynamic egotism may rend itself apart and bum out through its very intensity. Intellectual egotism may, and often does, co-exist with all the outward forms of virtue and purity; it may be the source of characteristics, in appearance seemingly excellent, and yet devoid of true spiritual life, because their root is poisoned; or, to put the matter in another way, these “virtues” can develop only up to a certain point because there is a deep-seated conviction of limitation behind them, which eternally blocks their expansion toward the great Liberation. Certain of the Buddha’s discourses, as recorded by his disciples, make it clear that this intellectualizing of the “self” prevailed among the Brahmans, both those who lived a worldly life under the protection of the princes, and those who, following the old tradition of renunciation, had abandoned worldly life and had become homeless ascetics, often practising bodily and mental mortifications of extreme severity, and carrying them on for years, with persevering honesty. If we grasp this progressive intellectualization and hardening of the idea of “self”, we shall find in it the clue to many different sides of the Buddha’s teaching. To begin with, we shall see clearly that the presence of this obses¬ sing thought in the minds of those who were in other ways fitted to become his disciples, made it necessary for the Buddha, as a preliminary, to break up this mental image once and for all, and, consequently, to over-emphasize and over-state the unreality of “self”, thus lending colour to the view taken by Western scholars, that the Buddha flatly denied the existence of the soul. One is led to believe that the great Teacher clearly saw that, until this inner idol was broken to atoms, there could be no beginning of spiritual life; any seeming beginning would be a false dawn, a danger, not a real progress. He further saw, we may believe, that those who successfully passed through this shattering of the interior image of “self”, would in due course enter the silence beyond the storm, and that the dawn of the true Self within their hearts would supply the positive truth, the supplement of his initial negative teaching. There are many recorded conversations of the Buddha with learned and distinguished Brahmans, both wealthy landowners and homeless ascetics, which are fully intelligible only when we have grasped this clue of the intel¬ lectualization and hardening of the idea of “self”. But in reality the problem is not limited to distorted philosophical views and the need of controverting them. The tendency which carried the Brahman type of intellect so far in this direction, was strongly operative in other ways also. Rightly to under¬ stand them, and to see how they affected the life of India then, as they affect it to-day, we must consider the history of the Brahmans through many millenniums. And it may be said in passing that the contraction of these long millenniums into brief centuries by Western scholars, under the influence NOTES AND COMMENTS 195 of a distorted dogmatic chronology, has immensely complicated the problem of Indian history, including the spiritual history of that ancient land. While there has been race mixture among the Brahmans, they remain to-day, as they were millenniums ago, distinctly a white race; Brahmans of pure ethnical type sometimes have blue eyes, showing an ancient connection with the white-skinned, blue-eyed races of more Northern lands. Indeed, both tradition and the evidence of the oldest hymns indicate that the Brah¬ mans, or the white race from which the Brahmans originated, entered India from the North, at a period immensely remote. It seems also certain that they were already in possession of what, for lack of a better name, may be described as a “magical” system, in part embodied in the chanting of the Vedic hymns; and that these hymns, or, rather, their manner of chanting them, represented a knowledge of magical powers, of “occult” forces, depend¬ ing on the correlations of sounds and tones with forces in Nature which may be described generally as “etheric” or “electrical”. If this be true, then the Vedic “divinities”, the Fire-lord, the Wind-lord, and the rest of the Vedic hierarchies, were personifications of cosmic “electrical” forces, such as the science of to-day is beginning to reveal; and the “incantations” represent the technical method of controlling these forces. There are indications that this science of subtiler substances, of “celestial” electricity and magnetism, was a part of a more comprehensive science, mysti¬ cal and spiritual in the fullest sense, possessed by the ancestors of the white Brahmans long ages before they crossed the Himalayas and entered India by the North-western passes; and that much of the deeper and more spiritual part of this ancient wisdom had become obscured, so far as the majority of that white race was concerned, before they crossed the Himalayan snows. The causes of this obscuration are hidden from us in an immensely remote past, but we can trace some of its effects. Indeed, these effects are clearly brought to light and underlined in certain significant passages of the great Upanishads. To make the matter concrete, we may say that the Brahmanical teaching, as represented by the hymns of the Rig Veda, does not contain, or, at any rate, does not reveal, the heart of the Mystery teaching: namely, the twin doctrines of Liberation and Reincarnation. The life beyond death, as set forth in this oldest Brahmanical system, pictures an under-world very like that of Babylonia: a limbo of shades, the wraiths of deceased ancestors, who were in danger of perishing from inanition unless they received yearly offer¬ ings of food from their descendants, in the Shraddha sacrifice. At this point, two thoughts suggest themselves: first, that this view of the life after death is a shadowy memory of a fuller version of the Mystery teaching, such as we have supposed the remote trans-Himalayan ancestors of these white Brahmans of Upper India to have possessed millenniums earlier. This is suggested by the fact that these partial and limited beliefs will yield a consistent and much more spiritual meaning, if interpreted according to the principles of symbolism which run through the great Upanishads. To illustrate: the departed “shades” must be nourished by offerings of food made by their children and The Theosophical Quarterly Subscription price, $1.00 per annum; single copies 25 cents Published by The Theosophical Society at 64 Washington Mews, New York, N. Y. July; October; January; April Address all communications to P. O. Box 64 , Station O, New York JANUARY, 1929 The Theosophical Society, as such, is not responsible for any opin declaration m tins magazine, by whomsoever expressed, unless contained official document. In Europe, single copies may be obtained from and subscriptions may be sent to John M. Watkins, 21 Cecil Court, Charing Cross Road, London, W. C. 2, England; or to Mr. E. H. Lincoln, 9 Beaconsfield Road, Low Fell, Gateshead-on-Tyne, England, from whom all back numbers may be obtained. Annual subscription price, 6s., postpaid. Rajput and Brahman in Buddha’s Day T HE understanding of Buddhism by Western scholars is in gem by certain limitations. To begin with, they are inclined much stress on what may be called the negative aspect of th teaching, as, for example, when they represent that great Teacher the existence of the soul, or the existence of a Divine Principle in tl The deeply misleading term, Nihilism, has been applied by certa Western students of Pali to the Buddha’s doctrine, and they havi Nirvana as unconditional death. The view that the Buddha denied the existence of a soul in ma the misunderstanding, and therefore the mistranslation, of the Atta, which is a softened dialect form of the Sanskrit Atma. But change of form, there is also, between Sanskrit and Pali, a profounc meaning. It is true that in Sanskrit the word Atma covers a v beginning as a simple pronoun, “oneself,” the habitual persona including the body, and ranging upward through ascending stag identification, and, in the great Upanishads, signifying the Higher finally, the Supreme Self of all beings. A careful study of the Pali CONTENTS OF VOL. XXVI, NO. 3 January, 1929 NOTES AND COMMENTS. FRAGMENTS. OF CABBAGES—AND KINGS. WAR MEMORIES. SYMBIONTICISM AND THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. LODGE DIALOGUES. ELEUSIS. A REVERSED TRIANGLE. WHY I REJOINED THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY CHHANDOGYA UPANISHAD. ON THE SCREEN OF TIME. LETTERS TO STUDENTS. REVIEWS. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY The principal aim and object of this Society is to form the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste or colour. The subsidiary objects are: The study of ancient and modern religions, philosophies and sciences, and the demonstration of the importance of such study; and the investigation of the unexplained laws of nature and the psychical powers latent in man. Entered ns second-daw matter September 5. 1933 . at the Post Office at New York. N. Y., under the Act of March 3. *879. Copyright, 1929, by The Theosophical Society fzl 1 H 51 ml cr I 553 yf35 194 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY boundaries, even when it was described as infinite and everlasting. This steady concentration of thought on a “self” which was in reality only a mental image, gave rise to a type of intellectual egotism that was a far more serious barrier in the way to true spiritual progress than the passional egotism of the man of desire, since this more dynamic egotism may rend itself apart and bum out through its very intensity. Intellectual egotism may, and often does, co-exist with all the outward forms of virtue and purity; it may be the source of characteristics, in appearance seemingly excellent, and yet devoid of true spiritual life, because their root is poisoned; or, to put the matter in another way, these “virtues” can develop only up to a certain point because there is a deep-seated conviction of limitation behind them, which eternally blocks their expansion toward the great Liberation. Certain of the Buddha’s discourses, as recorded by his disciples, make it clear that this intellectualizing of the “self” prevailed among the Brahmans, both those who lived a worldly life under the protection of the princes, and those who, following the old tradition of renunciation, had abandoned worldly life and had become homeless ascetics, often practising bodily and mental mortifications of extreme severity, and carrying them on for years, with persevering honesty. If we grasp this progressive intellectualization and hardening of the idea of “self”, we shall find in it the clue to many different sides of the Buddha’s teaching. To begin with, we shall see clearly that the presence of this obses¬ sing thought in the minds of those who were in other ways fitted to become his disciples, made it necessary for the Buddha, as a preliminary, to break up this mental image once and for all, and, consequently, to over-emphasize and over-state the unreality of “self”, thus lending colour to the view taken by Western scholars, that the Buddha flatly denied the existence of the soul. One is led to believe that the great Teacher clearly saw that, until this inner idol was broken to atoms, there could be no beginning of spiritual life; any seeming beginning would be a false dawn, a danger, not a real progress. He further saw, we may believe, that those who successfully passed through this shattering of the interior image of “self , would in due course enter the silence beyond the storm, and that the dawn of the true Self within their hearts would supply the positive truth, the supplement of his initial negative teaching. There are many recorded conversations of the Buddha with learned and distinguished Brahmans, both wealthy landowners and homeless ascetics, which are fully intelligible only when we have grasped this clue of the intel¬ lectualization and hardening of the idea of “self”. But in reality the problem is not limited to distorted philosophical views and the need of controverting them. The tendency which carried the Brahman type of intellect so far in this direction, was strongly operative in other ways also. Rightly to under¬ stand them, and to see how they affected the life of India then, as they affect it to-day, we must consider the history of the Brahmans through many millenniums. And it may be said in passing that the contraction of these long millenniums into brief centuries by Western scholars, under the influence NOTES AND COMMENTS of a distorted dogmatic chronology, has immensely complicated the problem of Indian history, including the spiritual history of that ancient land. While there has been race mixture among the Brahmans, they remain to-day, as they were millenniums ago, distinctly a white race; Brahmans of pure ethnical type sometimes have blue eyes, showing an ancient connection with the white-skinned, blue-eyed races of more Northern lands. Indeed, both tradition and the evidence of the oldest hymns indicate that the Brah¬ mans, or the white race from which the Brahmans originated, entered India from the North, at a period immensely remote. It seems also certain that they were already in possession of what, for lack of a better name, may be described as a “magical” system, in part embodied in the chanting of the Vedic hymns; and that these hymns, or, rather, their manner of chanting them, represented a knowledge of magical powers, of “occult” forces, depend¬ ing on the correlations of sounds and tones with forces in Nature which may be described generally as “etheric” or “electrical”. If this be true, then the Vedic “divinities”, the Fire-lord, the Wind-lord, and the rest of the Vedic hierarchies, were personifications of cosmic “electrical” forces, such as the science of to-day is beginning to reveal; and the “incantations” represent the technical method of controlling these forces. There are indications that this science of subtiler substances, of “celestial” electricity and magnetism, was a part of a more comprehensive science, mysti¬ cal and spiritual in the fullest sense, possessed by the ancestors of the white Brahmans long ages before they crossed the Himalayas and entered India by the North-western passes; and that much of the deeper and more spiritual part of this ancient wisdom had become obscured, so far as the majority of that white race was concerned, before they crossed the Himalayan snows. The causes of this obscuration are hidden from us in an immensely remote past, but we can trace some of its effects. Indeed, these effects are clearly brought to light and underlined in certain significant passages of the great Upanishads. To make the matter concrete, we may say that the Brahmanical teaching, as represented by the hymns of the Rig Veda, does not contain, or, at any rate, does not reveal, the heart of the Mystery teaching: namely, the twin doctrines of Liberation and Reincarnation. The life beyond death, as set forth in this oldest Brahmanical system, pictures an under-world very like that of Babylonia: a limbo of shades, the wraiths of deceased ancestors, who were in danger of perishing from inanition unless they received yearly offer¬ ings of food from their descendants, in the Shraddha sacrifice. At this point, two thoughts suggest themselves: first, that this view of the life after death is a shadowy memory of a fuller version of the Mystery teaching, such as we have supposed the remote trans-Himalayan ancestors of these white Brahmans of Upper India to have possessed millenniums earlier. This is suggested by the fact that these partial and limited beliefs will yield a consistent and much more spiritual meaning, if interpreted according to the principles of symbolism which run through the great Upanishads. To illustrate: the departed “shades” must be nourished by offerings of food made by their children and . THEOSOPHICAL quarterly 190 grand-children: inten^ted ; future be maintained, this can on y -descendant”, the personal man, must ward in life after We_ Again h d man ig to be strengthened ceaselessly offer sacrifice, if the high , P perp etual suggestions of and sustained. On the one hand trad iLnal Brahmanical doc- an inner, deeply spiritual meaning doctrine in the fullest trines, a meaning going back p , c i ea r indications that, at import of that term. On the other hand when they least for the great majority of the obs cured. The technical entered India, that meaning ^d been ^ & dearly marke d method of effective “Ration * d developmen t, had likewise been intelligence are preserved a.ong the invaders with older Indian ofmountains. and the Dravidians, Kolanan, dwelling mainly m d ar k ra ces of Southern India, so called also in ancient times, Who are 1 ^y ^ of the New possibly remnants of an o er white race with older yellow or black Guinea region. This concussion °f the white ra< ^ ^ Wack Dasyus , races has been clearly seen by om schd , ^ the ancient Sanskrit books and of yellow Dasyus, in the Jedicbo ^ name ly, the red Rajput there are equally clear records y ^ b Weste m scholars. Yet race, which is by no means so clearly that “the colour of the Sanskrit texts are explic t. Kshatriva (Rajput) is red”; and, the Brahman is white; the colour o . . tht these words are symbolical, chat there may be no obscurity, no int0 “red-limbed” describing moral qualities only, the w P which (rakta-anga). Besides rakta, a second wordfor should stffl remain means the colour of fresh iron rust. ® te of pure race in their in doubt, keen andableobservers arc t(>day exact i y what the Maha- own Rajputana, tell us that tl JP r ed-limbed, a red race, dis- s» - * a —- - Brahmans and the red Rajputs, we t follow the clues thus ling the tangled skem of ancient understand the attitude of found, we shall be better ab e, and als0| perhaps, to gam some L h ;^ * “ da /o’i^hTt SaSST- a P- of - Northern NOTES AND COMMENTS 197 race which crossed the Himalayas; for one thing, there are clear indications of white races, but not of red races, in Central Asia, from which these white invaders proximately came. But there were red races in ancient Egypt. The red granite of the Egyptian statues may have been chosen, not only for its excellent lasting qualities, but because it well represented the skin- colour of the ancient Egyptian race, as contrasted with whiter limestone or marble. 'This likeness of skin-colour may suggest an ethnical kinship between the ancient Egyptians and the remoter ancestors of the great races of Raj¬ putana, whose pure descendants are a red race to-day. The symbol of the “eye of Osiris” has been found in Mesopotamia, probably earned thither by colonists from Egypt, and there is no difficulty in supposing that another larger colony may have reached the mouth of the Indus, the Westem doorway of Rajputana, many millenniums ago. Whatever their earlier home, the Rajputs as described in the Mahabharata , belong to a red-limbed, fighting race, clearly distinguished from the white Brahmans. But, to gain a full comprehension of the line of demarcation be¬ tween these two great races, we must go to the far older Upanishads, and, in particular, to a vitally important passage, more than once translated and discussed, which reveals the true relation between Rajput and Brahman at a decisive point in the history of India. Without repeating that story, we may say that it puts on record three pro¬ foundly important truths. The first of these, dramatically and also very humorously set forth, is, that at that immensely remote time, the Brahmans, here represented by a humble father and a conceited son, already possessed the Three Vedas, namely, the Rig Veda of the hymns, the Yajur Veda of the formulae of sacrifice, and the Sama Veda of incantations; the three together constituting the practical method of using the command of cosmic “etheric” forces which was the hereditary treasure of the Brahmans. It seems further clear that the ability to operate these “etheric” forces through the rites which may broadly be described as “sacrificial ceremonies”, gave the Brahmans their power and prestige, and led to their being employed (as “celestial elec¬ tricians,” if the expression be permitted) by rich princes and landowners, who thereupon bestowed largesse upon the successful operators, gifts of cattle and gold. The Brahmans of that earliest period of the Upanishads were thus in full possession of an ancient literary and ceremonial culture, which conferred definite and valuable powers over what may be called ethereal natural forces; this knowledge being an heirloom, what remained of the far more compre¬ hensive knowledge of the Mysteries which their remote ancestors had pos¬ sessed in some region of Central Asia, north of the Himalayas; a land that may then have flowed with milk and honey, but which slowly and steadily deteriorated under the influence of those far-reaching climatic changes that have made an arid desert of so much of Inner Asia, where streams flow down from the snow-clad mountains, to lose themselves in sandy wastes, and never reach the sea. It is altogether likely that this climatic deterioration of a once fertile region was the cause of the southward emigration of the white race, COMMENTS NOTES AND supposition be correct a nean an hereditary cap ^een obscured, ier knowledge of t e My ^ them to attain tten, would make it races possessing no than would be the ca anc ient tendency Yet it would also seem that the_ anc^ of necessity be opera ive, ’ treasure of wisdom. the secret wisdom had been imparted to assimilate that secret w.sdom and The immense development of the the system of the Vedanta. Ties, is sufficient evidence systems, and even in the ,f wisdom, is also evident, the expense of intuition; ; transcendental reasoning of the awakened spiritual 1 attainment, and, *--5 devoted their powers, their opponents. It thus ; whether of the Vedanta - -'.'markable examples of intellectual ^tal spiritual realities. But it should there must have been ^ ig and crystallizing ms. Something was : Buddha. But it is swer as is involved in ^ tain to react strongly say that the inherent this intellectualizing. ■e, both on higher and s expression would be ire for rich possessions it of recognition and to make spiritual gifts ce in the Brahmans of earlier, and a number THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY remarkable gifts. If th Himalayan ancestors w knowledge still testified hymns, then this woulc which, even after the e; or even completely for this spiritual knowledg such spiritual heredity. to obscuration '■- stances, Both tendencies seem one hand, that the Brahmans, them by the Rajputs, i- on the whole, with rei philosophical systems ( embodied in t.. of this success, later Vedanta, the Intellect gained a r< or, to put the matter more were developed, rather than will. Brilliant knowledge t too often, the possessors of this m ^ ^ not to gaining spiritual gr t , cornm entaries, r ” zZyZ are ■ ■ ■ the Sankhya, or tne __:^i gymnastics, rather than revelations be added that at every period the defects of their qualities, eifts and of the rich spiritual This deep y who , e history of spiritual truth mar t b • 1 outset concerning its pcu said at tn ^omental misdirection of Liberation and Reincarnation. When the youth, “conceited, vain of his learning and proud,” was asked five questions by the Rajput King questions which quite clearly imply these twin doctrines, and which were, in fact, trans¬ parent leading questions—he failed completely to answer them; in his own words, “The Rajput asked me five questions; I did not know even one of them.” If, as has been suggested, the remote trans-Himalayan ancestors of these Brahmans had of old possessed a full knowledge of the Mysteries, of necessity including these twin doctrines, then we are compelled to come to the conclusion that, at the time of the earliest and greatest of the Upanishads, the descendants of the white invaders of India, though retaining a partial knowledge of the Mysteries, with the effective mastery of etheric, electrical forces, had so completely forgotten the more spiritual side of that knowledge, that they altogether failed to recognize its central truths, even when laid before them in an almost transparent disguise. The third of the three truths revealed by this ancient Upanishad story is the most important; it is the clue to the whole subsequent history of India, spiritual and political, through the millenniums down to the Buddha’s day, and onward to the present and the still unrevealed future. It is that, while the Brahmans, father and son, though masters of the “magical” lore of the Three Vedas, yet admitted frankly that they were wholly ignorant of the heart of the Mysteries, on the other hand, the red Rajputs, represented by King Pravahana, were in full possession of that deeper teaching. More than that, the text clearly implies that they had possessed this treasure for ages, and that it had been handed down in regular succession of Teacher and disciple in the Rajput race. This is explicitly brought out in the famous commentary attributed to the great Brahman Shankaracharya, who here uses the term guru-par am par a, the technical meaning of which is the chain, or apostolic succession, of Teacher and disciple, through which a spiritual teaching is handed down from century to century. Finally, we have the practical conclusion of this deeply significant story. On the occasion there described, the elder of the two Brahmans, because of his great humility and aspiration, was initiated into the Mystery teaching hereditary among the Rajputs, but which, as the texts explicitly record, “had never before been given to any Brahman.” Here, then, is the key to all the later history of India, through the period of the Great War, the time of the Buddha’s teaching, the later centuries of conflict between Brahman and Buddhist, and the whole modern period, as well as centuries yet to come. The Brahman race had a great heredity, and possessed, and still possesses, would also might once again to have come -1, once made great efforts to ^markable success. ; of India, and in particular the Brahma Sutras and their comme Yet in these highly philosophic second tendency, the darkemr •emarkable development, but definitely, the powers oi i the far deeper powers took the place of real spiritual itellectual brilliance u-. 200 THE 0 S 0 PHICAL QUARTERLY SIT S ?ef,Ws w„X** ' JPan ' Sh '“ 1S *"" Pr ' d “' y ™ this Brahmanic, amess. Yet this worldhness was more or less on the surface of the moral » m , d T'"' ,ar "*— its ta«r co„„°2 S’ thl f ambition and arrogance, which might easily comport mth the possession of great “virtues”, ascetic rigours, bodily and even psy of spiritual ^p'ride alllT ^ UP ° n " ^ and dangerOUS foundation spiritual pnde, and an exclusiveness which, shutting out other less rifted revelation'oOh^ !. “Z “"I’ th ' “ “»A .J outly ££ evelation of the Logos, thus barring the way to the true path of Liberation shall be tble t ; iSt r C a al and Spi . ritUal considerati °ns clearly in view, we with the R l ° Und f t Stand m detai1 the recorded relations of the Buddha Vedas and ra thre n xce°ed i % b ° tH ^ WOrldly P ossessors of the Three , n ee , compelled, to make special efforts to enlist the best of the Brah verrin^The R* f °"? ^ Say that he had - his heart on W tha . " g , the Brahmans from intellectual brilliance to spiritual attainment- ■n the larger aspect of his undertaking, the ZdZVLTVhet ^T V' tormidabl ™„“ MyT™ 1 ”' r “ Buddlm ' s c,ia " e "^ * Snowy Mountains to China.'Tibet and JuJ^rZ his mighty effort to tmnsfon^B,’, ^. “ “ ™ ”' h '" «“ ■»»<“ buS,",'Ce“aTto^aUo*' “I B h2^p m “ b S“y b S up^ NOTES AND COMMENTS Rajputs also, the warriors of the race to which the Buddha and some of his great disciples belonged. The Rajputs themselves, or many of them, had also suffered deterioration. Their warlike energy had the defects of its qualities, and they were altogether too prone to fratricidal quarrels and rivalries. This had been true for millenniums. The war of the Mahdbharata , besides its mystical meaning brought out in the Bhagavad Gita , has its historical side. It was a fratricidal war among the tribes and clans of Rajputs, waged with unrelenting ferocity, and it was precisely the weakening of the Rajputs in this internecine war that gave the Brahmans their opportunity to seize and hold predominant power in India, a power fully in evidence in the Buddha’s time, and not less strongly operative to-day. The influence of the Rajputs, weakened in the Great War, was never fully restored, though they always possessed, and still possess, many elements of moral and spiritual greatness. But, in part because of this weakening, the Rajputs were not able to give the Buddha the support which they ought to have given, in his campaign against Brahman arrogance and ambition. And it would further appear that their hold on their great hereditary possession, the sacred Mysteries, had been so restricted and impaired, that they were not able, as a race, to recognize the magnificent opportunity presented to them by the Buddha’s mission, by his incarnation among them as a Rajput. The available evidence tends to show that the failure of the men of Rajput race adequately to support the Buddha, not less than the spiritual arrogance and ambition of the Brahmans, contributed to hold the Buddha’s mission back from full success, and was, therefore, one of the causes of its ultimate and humiliating failure, so far as India was concerned, a failure which has brought in its train centuries of degradation and spiritual bondage. Such failure is no new experience for the Masters of Wisdom; but, for them, failure is ever an incitement and a challenge, a signal to try again, with renewed effort and immortal valour. fragments I t was just the grey hour before dawn. Whispers were coming out of the shadows, the tree-tops swayed a little; then the great stillness fell that is prelude to a new day. I turned and saw him, casque and chain shirt, and the white, voluminous folds of his cloak, settling over his shoulders where the upspringing rays of magnetic light give the look of half-opened wings. He smiled, saluting with his sword. In the eastern sky, though the dawn had not yet come, it was as if a vast curtain were lifting, and then behind it another curtain, and yet another, and so on and on, and in and in, as slowly each was raised. There was no light on this side, but on that a suffused brilliance that increased in intensity as curtain succeeded curtain, and sight was lost in the endless vista. The expanses between were filled, as one had never dreamt f„i„„.... OF CABBAGES—AND KINGS “ The time has come , the Walrus said , To talk of many things; Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax— Of cabbages—and kings —” T HE twin doctrines of evolution and involution are basic in the theosophical philosophy, and Theosophy has welcomed and made its own all the evidence upon which science has constructed the theory o biological evolution and through which it traces man’s ascent, ^ descent, Tom lower forms of life. Yet as all truth is a two-edged sword, and as half- truths may be the worst falsehoods, cutting back against the hand that tries to use them, the thoughtful student of Theosophy is likely to consider the modem teaching of evolution as one of the gravest dangers of our time. In this, even if in little else, he finds himself in agreement with the late Mr. Bryan and those who are quite erroneously called “religious fundamentalists. The name is erroneous because the ground on which they take their stan is, in reality, neither religious nor fundamental; and the controversy between them and the “evolutionists” has been from the first a paradoxical contest between truth drawn from error and error drawn from truth. The Scopes trial, three years ago at Dayton, Tennessee—the case of the young teacher who persisted in teaching his conception of evolution to his pupils in the public school, despite the State law prohibiting it-awoke laughter which has scarcely yet died down, but for the m(*t part it was unthinking laughter, with little appreciation of the actual cond.Uons tha t la y behind the fulminations of the self-appointed champions of academic freedom” and evolution on the one hand, and of the literal interpretationi o the book of Genesis on the other. Legally, the issue was very clear and simple but both parties to the controversy did everything possible to shift it,, and to make it appear that evolution itself was on trial, and that “the -al question was—as stated by Mr. Bryan and accepted by Professor Osborn— Did God Tse evolurion a S His plan^’ To attempt to settle that question by the vote of a jury of farmers and shop-keepers, drawn from a little country town was of course, supremely ridiculous; and the plain common sense of the jury scarcely needed the ruling of the judge to know that they could not, and did not have to, pass upon it. All that concerned them was ^ther Scop^ had violated the conditions of his employment and the law of the State Bryan s question lay far beyond their jurisdiction and could only become, even theoret¬ ically pertinent after a whole series of other questions had been answere . Some of these other questions are well worthy of earnest fought, and as it ■ 204 THE 0 S 0 PHICAL QUARTERLY other legal tests of State educational laws, it may be of value to consider them In the recent elections an “anti-evolution” act was submitted by referendum • ° ., 6 f' tlZe " S ° f Arkansas and was overwhelmingly approved. As set forth m the New York Times (November 25th, 1928), the bill provides “that it shall be unlawful for any teacher or other instructor in any university, college, normal, public school or other institution of the State, which is supported in whole or in part from public funds derived by State or local taxation, to teach the theory or doctrine that mankind ascended or descended from a lower order o animals. The act becomes effective December 6th, 1928, and it has been announced that “its constitutionality may be challenged, and in any event the State Supreme Court will be asked to interpret its meaning.” The result of the Arkansas referendum has been widely proclaimed as a triumph of the fundamentalists,” and, equally widely, as indisputable and alarming proof of the backwardness and ignorance of our rural communities, hampering the advance of truth and showing themselves at least half a century behind the times in their disbelief in evolution. But it bv no means follows, as a logical conclusion from their vote, that the people of Arkansas do disbelieve in evolution. It would be quite as logical to infer that the people , . ° r disbelieved in all religion, and had unmistakably asserted their atheism in the ordinance excluding from their public schools the teaching of lgion. he questions passed upon in the two States were not whether evolution, and religion, were true or false, nor whether the majority of the wheSerevo^r Ved ’ Z ^ SbeHeVed ’ in either ' The <l^stion in Arkansas was whether evolution and the question in New York was whether religion, was DubHc g ed, aS r° Z 14 d6SirabIe t0 indude this ’ ns truction in the system of public education designed to mould the State’s future citizens and which all StatS T S 7 T 1 t ° l SUPPOrt Jt may be our P ersonaI °Pin>on that both States decided wrongly, but it is difficult to defend the action of New York “academic^ d * Nor is eas y to see how the principle of thev freedom 15 threatened by either. The teachers may believe what Snclusi 0 o 0 n S s e ' t hro SU h SUCh ^ Ch °° Se ’ ^ PUbHsh their beliefs and conclusions through any media that will accept them. They are required subjectsTnTnot 5 ? “ the ,P ubllc schooIs they are employed to teach certain subjects and not others; and that if they wish to teach these other subjects and to chi Id re h° * ^ S !? te ’ S expense ’ making use of the State’s facilities, S?Wr C ^patts'X ndanCC thC COmpdS ’ irreSp6Ctive ° f th6ir insttad^f betffir 41 ^ 117 ™" cei r able ’ therefore, that the State of Arkansas, ulyabreastifnoT T ^ ^ ” its ignorance °f evolution, is effects which the u th6m “ c °nsideration to the actual ettects which the present teaching of evolution tends to produce and in deeding that these effects are neither of such proved and universal beneficence childre^at tSnubl ^ “ a Wh ° le ’ that they should be forced u P on all be taxed to nc,r , ,r PenSe ’. S ° that BrOWn 3nd J ° nes should continue to be taxed to inculcate them m the progeny of Smith. There has been a vast 111C1C «i«my true iormulae tor the prepara- ives from simple materials; but however true, may be, it could not be sound policy to insist no warning of their danger If knowledge be power, education in its and at no time in the world’s history has as it is in America to-day. morning paper (New York Times , November 29th, .perhaps few readers will have related. a sentence of life imprisonment upon a Mr. Tripp, aged -J in all other respects, had for supplying intoxicating beverages to his is an extract from the annual report ; of Columbia University. It is pointed * J take graduate courses never fulfil the -1 college merely desire “to in the groves of the academy,” believing “that the atmos- --2.” The Dean does not wish it presents a situation which is not the important thing is not the is done in consequence of their coming”. In means should be devised for the early “scgrega- -come here to breathe”; and research courses, which “are They unar an sciiool children should be taught them, with or restrictions against their misuse, right use should precede its bestowal, this principle been so disregarded In a recent issue of a r* '__ o 1928) there appeared two items which The first records thirty-seven, who, though of a blameless record the fourth time been found guilty of < fellow citizens of Michigan. The second of the Dean of the Graduate Faculties c ~ out that two thirds of the students who 1 requirements for degrees, but after graduation from live a little longer i phere of a university provides good air to breathe.” to discourage this, but considers that understood and which should be studied,—as numbers that come, but what particular he recommends that tion of those who come here to work from those who and, second, for safeguarding the advanced l_I_ not instituted for teaching purposes or for the benefit of individuals are instituted for the advancement of learning. Their value diminishes in P - P T- aS thCy become Pedagogical instruments and discipline, or are a «- ded by students whose attitude is that of passive absorption. They should be strictly safeguarded for the purposes for which they exist”. It is apparent from this report, therefore, that so far from the advancement of truth requiring its dissemination to those unready to make right use of it research may thereby be hampered and not helped. What is not apparent’ however, and what is far too little considered, is the effect of advanced courses upon students who merely “breathe” where work is required for right under¬ standing and mental health. Those who work at first hand in any subject become clearly conscious of the limitations of their knowledge and gain some salutary sense of the vast unknown potentialities that lie beyond- but those whose attitude is mere “passive absorption” lack this corrective and are given to assuming that what they have heard is all there is to know. This is not so much strong meat ’ as it is strong wine; and if our prohibition laws extended to mental intoxicants and narcotics, one wonders what sentences would be earned by university professors, popularizing their research for the consump- 206 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY tion of the immature. It would not be a question of the truth and purity of their teaching—as that teaching would be understood by their colleagues— but of its alcoholic content when unbalanced and unneutralized by first-hand knowledge, and of its actual effect upon the student. Such sympathy as we may have with the State of Arkansas, therefore need imply no disbelief in evolution. Our quarrel is not with the biologist’s truths, but with their misuse and the mental intoxication which results when it is assumed that the biological theory of evolution tells us all there is to know about the origin and nature of man. We may accept, as fully as any modern biologist, the doctrine that all the multi-cellular organisms, including the body of man, have arisen in progressive ascent and development from uni¬ cellular life; that there has been a continuous adaptation of organisms to their changing environment; and that throughout all of nature “the simpler and more lowly forms always precede the higher and more specialized forms”,— save that we might have to ask in just what sense the “simpler” is to be supposed “more lowly” than the complex which develops from if for the theosophical view of evolution is that of a great helix, sweeping from the simpli¬ city of unity through the specializations of diversity to realize unity again upon another plane. But to the student of Theosophy the evolutionary process is seen as primarily a movement of the spirit—a movement which causes, and is not caused by, the evolution of organic forms which the biologist traces. As man is more than his body, so is his evolution more than that of his physical organism; and therefore the biologist’s truths, when taken out of their own field and applied to anthropology and history, psychology and sociology, become but misleading half-truths, acting sometimes as narcotics, sometimes as intoxicants, upon minds whose attitude toward them is “passive absorption”. This is their mischief and their danger. Examples of it abound. In one of his essays, called forth by the Scopes trial, Professor Osborn points out that, “In one of the great states of the world Russia, the experiment is being made on a colossal scale to rule mankind by science alone, on a platform of atheism, of denial of all religious restraints and prohibitions, and of affirmation of atheism”. In Professor Osborn’s view it is bound to fail, because even the Russian peasants “are much more than machines; their bodies are easy to account for by evolution, their spirits and souls can be accounted for only through very long, continuous progress closely akin to creation”. Professor Osborn does not seem to see, however’ that this colossal, tragic experiment, foredoomed to failure, this welter of murder and evil preached as good, would never have been tried had it not !u T i? 6 T 7 r Wh ' Ch SClenCC has been mistau ght, intoxicating minds with the thought that it ,s itself enough. But we do not need to look so far from home. It is difficult to find a modem book, dealing with these themes which does not assume that man has risen from the beasts through long sons of savagery; that his most deeply rooted and fundamental instincts have a «v! f ° r K SaVage / ngm ' HlS m ° ral SCnSe and rel 'Si°us beliefs, arising from savage taboos and superstitious ignorance; and that the right use of his very OF CABBAGES—AND KINGS 207 newly acquired intelligence is to free himself from all that has been reverenced as sacred. “ Nothing is more essential in our attempt to escape from the bond¬ age of consecrated ideas than to get a vivid notion of human achievement in its proper historical perspective”, writes Professor Robinson in his book The Mind in the Making. “We find in savage thought a sort of intensified and generalized taboo in the classification of things as clean and unclean and in the conceptions of the sacred. These are really expressions of profound and persistent traits in the uncritical mind and can only be overcome by carefully cultivated criticism. They are the result of our natural timidity and the constant dread lest we find ourselves treading on holy (i.e., dangerous) ground. . . . In dealing with the relations of the sexes the terms‘pure’and‘impure’ introduce mystic and irrational moods alien to clear analysis and reasonable readjustments. . . . Man, like plants and animals in general, tends to go on from generation to generation, living as nearly as may be the life of his forebears. Changes have to be forced upon him. . . . The conservative‘on principle’ is therefore a most unmistakably primitive person in his attitude. His only advance beyond the savage mood lies in the specious reasons he is able to advance for remaining of the same mind. What we vaguely call a ‘radical’ is a very recent product due to altogether exceptional and unpre¬ cedented circumstances.” Such passages could be paralleled endlessly, and the smallest reflection shows the danger that lies in their popular acceptance. Professor Robinson himself points out that ‘‘The great mass of humanity has never had anything to do with the increase of intelligence except to act as its medium of transfusion and perpetuation. Creative intelligence is confined to the very few, but the many can thoughtlessly avail themselves of the more obvious achievements of those who are exceptionally endowed.” He points out, too, that ‘‘Man has never been able to adapt himself very perfectly to his civilization”, yet the whole effect of his teaching is that the age-old restraints of civilization should be cast aside, leaving the ordinary man only his passions as a guide. Behind this whole body of thought lies the assumption that evolution has been an ascent from what is low to what is high, from unworthy to the worthy, from error to truth, so that whatever is ancient is to be left behind. But that is neither the meaning of the word, nor is it the theosophic view. Literally ‘‘evolution” means ‘‘the act of unfolding; a displaying”; and it is in this literal sense that Theosophy accepts it. The multi-cellular organisms arising, as biologists tell us, from uni-cellular life, display the potentialities that lay wrapped within the single cell. In it lies the basis of all its derivatives; destroy it and you destroy them. Truths do not owe their origin to false¬ hoods. Truths become known as the unfolding of the content of simpler— and profounder—truth, on which they rest. The propositions of geometry do not progressively reveal the falsity of earlier propositions and the unworthy ‘‘lowliness” of the simple axioms from which they have arisen. Rather do they progressively reveal the depth and breadth of content which lay within them. It is so with all evolution; that which comes earlier contains within THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY itself all that comes later; the past lives in the present; and to advance is to cause it to live more richly and completely, so that the end is the full realization of what was potential in the beginning. This view, accepting and making its own all the evidence on which the common theory rests, leads to diametrically opposite conclusions from those commonly drawn by modem writers who purport to apply the principles of evolution to sociology and psychology, but who really base their argument, as we have just seen, upon assumptions which evolution neither involves nor justifies, and which the biologists themselves do not attempt to defend. “The very operation of life,” as Bergson has said, “consists in the gradual passage from the less realized to the more realized, from the intensive to the extensive, from a reciprocal implication of parts to their juxtaposition”; and though Theosophy adds that this process of evolution and differentiation is followed by an involution and renewed synthesis, gather¬ ing all up into a new unity of realized content and significance, it is clear that that which is realized in the end was implicit in the beginning. We cannot reject or eliminate our origins; we must fulfil them perfectly. This principle is basic in theosophic philosophy, and governs each step in occult training and development,—for occultism is but man’s conscious and full co-operation with the processes of life in nature and supemature. “Speak to the earth and it shall teach thee.” This verse, quoted from the Book of Job by Professor Osborn in one of his replies to Mr. Bryan, has, for the theoso- phist, direct and immediate application to each stage of his path; for he knows that everything that is, from the “lowest” to the “highest”, reflects some facet of his own being, so that to study nature is to learn of Self, and to study Self is to learn of nature. More than this, because he sees evolution as cyclic,— spirit reflecting and manifesting itself in matter, gaining fuller consciousness of itself as it unfolds its interpenetrating inner contents into separate elements in the sequences of time and space, and then infolds them again in a new synthesis and unity,—because he sees that “the first shall be last,” he knows that it is the lowliest things that are the most fundamental and have most to tell him of the highest. “Iam that I am ”: it is the voice of the Most High, telling of Itself. But he who listens, hears the same self-revelation whispered by all substance. It is the voice of the mineral kingdom, of matter as matter, of the stuff with which nature builds—the first reflection of the spirit, the revelation of spirit’s inmost and essential being. It is the speech of rock and sand, of mountain and valley, of the earth and the stars. Each is that which it is; nor can anything from without itself, change what it is. Storm and wind beat upon the mountain, wear and groove its face, but it remains itself, its integrity unshaken. We can crush a stone to powder, yet in its dust it is still stone. There, in the mineral kingdom, the first lesson of life is made manifest; there man’s manhood has its roots. Until this lesson be learned, there can be no passing into the vegetable kingdom; for the essential requisite of plant life is that it should be so intensely itself, yet so at one with what is about it, that it can draw and transform into OF CABBAGES—AND KINGS 209 itself what is not itself,—that it can pass on the stamp it has itself received, and reproduce its kind. From the integrity of matter there has risen the integrity of the astral mould. Science has not found it easy to draw the dividing line between plant and animal. In common thought the outstanding difference is that whereas the plant must live and grow where its seed has fallen, putting forth its roots from that unchanging centre, the animal, having gathered its roots into itself, has gained in mobility and can search in a wider range for food to nourish it. Yet here, again, as always, the new power rests upon and is derived from the old; and if the old power weakens, the new becomes vitiated. It is of interest to reflect upon this, and looking into our own lives and into the lives of those we know, to note our need for the lessons which the vegetable kingdom should have taught us; to see that the virtues and powers of “cab¬ bages are indeed those of “kings”, and that, without them, “shoes and ships and sealing-wax are of little avail. The king, like the cabbage, must fulfil his destiny in his native soil. He cannot leave it for another, that seems to him more favourable. In his own kingdom, or nowhere, he must play his royal part, drawing into himself and both personifying and transforming into his own likeness, all the diverse elements of the nation that he rules. It is from these elements and none other that he must create his own and his country s greatness. If he abandon them, he abandons his kingship. The shoes in which he runs away, the “ships” that bear him overseas, the sealing-wax that takes the imprint of his abdication, are but means to his undoing, if, as king, he forgets the lessons he should have learned as cabbage. For a wandering, dethroned and exiled king is like an uprooted cabbage. But it is not only kings that need to heed the lesson of the cabbage and to emulate its powers and virtues. How many times a day do we ourselves not forget them, and, abandoning the field of our own life and duty, seek to feed mind and heart upon exotic imaginings, striving to nourish ourselves upon fictions instead of drawing from the solid substance of truth ? Looking at evolution thus, we see that the first problem our newly gained intelligence must face is not at all how to free ourselves from the trammels of our lowly heritage, but is, in fact, the exact opposite of this,—how may we fasten upon our consciousness the lessons that our ascent should have taught us, and manifest, in our “higher” life as men, the unfolding qualities of the spirit which the “lower” kingdoms faithfully reveal? How are we to show that we have not skimped our early lessons, and been “bom too soon in human shape”? WAR MEMORIES “It’s War!” I T is with a peculiar reticence, difficult perhaps to explain, that many of us who took part in the War speak of it and of our own War experiences, although very probably few of us have memories which are more tragically dear. To those of us who passed through it (even those who, like myself, played such very insignificant rdles), the world still continues largely to be divided into two parts—those who were “in it” and those who were not. This is not said with any sense of voluntary withdrawal, but because, if one must speak of it at all, one asks: “Where shall I begin? How can I ever end? And can I do even faint justice to so noble and great a theme? Sir Philip Gibbs, attempting a narration to non-combatants who had not yet glimpsed war, of his experiences at the front, of what he had seen and shared, said. “. . . . but it was only a few who understood.” This was at the end of the first nine months. Of course, thousands of people, millions rather, have been added since that first year to those who did see and share, and who therefore understand; yet there are still too many to whom the Great War has become recorded history only, rather than the memory of intense life lived from day to day through those four crowded and immortal years. To some of us the experiences of those years are as though they had happened but yesterday they are scarcely even memories, so persistently present are they. When we look back and think of boys, still in their first youth, with great ragged wounds, dying in our arms; or of women and children, hunted like animals, fleeing for their lives, overtaken and subjected to unspeakable outrages worse than death—to write of this is only adding one more chapter to the countless chapters which have already been written, and will the speaking again of that time make it more living? It seems incredible that the vividness of those days could ever grow dim; that there should be a necessity for recalling them, even to those who took no active part. Why are they not continually present with us all? Not the blood and the filth and the unspeakable weariness— these were, after all, small matters—but the majesty of it, the indescribable heroism of those who gave their uttermost. We remember those splendid men and women who answered the Great Call, and we turn away in shame and disgust at the pettiness of much that is in our lives to-day. Did they care whether they lived or died, so they could serve? Did they care who would be first or last, prominent or obscure? There was no first or last among those who gave their all. In war there are no inequalities among those who give all they have to give, and it is that self-giving which is the initiation into the brotherhood of soldiers. Those who did not give all they had, simply never took part in the War at all in any real or lasting sense. That self-giving was spontaneous with some, it had to be learned by others, but if it did not come sooner or later, the War, and the War’s deeper significance, remained a sealed book. If one had never seen whole-hearted sacrifice, one found it at last in the men who lived month after month in the trenches, thinking only of how they could give more, not less; among the stretcher bearers or those who drove ambulances under constant and deadly shell fire; among the women in field and base hospitals, where, tenderly, and under the most terrific strain and danger, they nursed the sorely wounded back to life, or, more tenderly still, closed their eyes when they died. I can claim no part whatever in such great and noble deeds, but I have watched them, and the splendour of them still shines into my heart, and always will. Must we then be forced to remember our silent dead? Is it possible to forget those who are still living—a living death? Those who are hopeless paralytics; those still crazed by shell-shock, or whose lungs are slowly rotting from the gas which Germany first used; those who are sightless; yes, those who have had their very faces shot away—what must they say to our ingratitude? Why should we have to write of these things again since we all know them? Yet there would seem to be the need, ‘Test we forget”—not the true War veterans, they never can forget; but for those to whom that magnificent conflict has begun to fade into vague and shadowy dreams. When one attempts to write about one’s own War experiences, one is in¬ stantly faced by a peculiar state of mind,—what was actually my own personal experience, and what has become so livipg to me that I think I saw it and took part in it? Many post-War writers have drawn attention to this phenomenon; I suppose, therefore, it is not an unusual one, but it is sometimes rather embarrassing if one is trying to record facts observed by oneself. With that strange blending of consciousness which was experienced at times by many of us during the War, who shall say that there was any real separation? A brother’s peril was one’s own; what he lived and suffered, one lived and suffered with him, and in moments of great danger the feeling of comradeship was so intense, our senses were so miraculously raised to unaccustomed heights, that many of us experienced “that release from the chains of ordinary life,” of which Through The Gates of Gold speaks. ‘‘That you actually feel your own physical wound is a weakness of your limitation. The man who is developed psychically feels the wound of another as keenly as his own.” This is but another way of explaining that strange state spoken of by post- War writers, and it was not as uncommon as the lethargy of peace conditions would try to persuade us. Yet the adventures of any one person are neces¬ sarily limited when gauged by the colossal dimensions of the World War, and in my own case they will, of necessity, be so especially. At least they have the advantage of being personal, however, and as such these “Memories” are written down. The question: Who started it?—that question which appears to be troubling some strange people in these post-War years—did not trouble us at all. It WAR MEMORIES THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY never even occurred to any of us to ask it: how could it? Austria had declared war on Serbia; Germany had declared war on Russia, and had invaded both France and Belgium. Therefore, those of us having the good fortune to be on hand when the first gun was fired, thanked that good fortune that we were there, and we simply enrolled ourselves, both outwardly and interiorly, as soldiers in our splendid cause, volunteering for active service in any capacity whatever, if only we might serve; volunteering, each under his own flag, whether that flag were inherited by birth, or, as in my case (being an American and therefore, alas, that unfortunate thing technically known as a “neutral”) whole-heartedly adopted. No use to retrace historical steps, or to follow the onward march of events between Fashoda and “the thirteen days,” for in order to gain any moral light, it would mean going back at least as far as that picturesque African episode. No use even starting with the Serajevo crime in June of that year of years, 1914. Are there not histories—mountains of them? And do they not tell, each according to its own understanding, the rights and wrongs of the gigantic issue ? In one sense, we in England had not been allowed by circumstances to be¬ come wholly deaf to “wars and rumours of wars,” but it was civil war that we feared, and few of us, at that time, paid much attention to the troubles abroad. I believe it can safely be said that up to the third week of July the best of our attention was given to the unhappy Irish question, and we seemed to have no eyes or ears for the great world across the Channel. The Home Rule Bill ruled the public mind, and the press was full of editorials and letters in favour of a “larger Ulster” or the reverse, as the case might be. We read about gun-running and its inevitable and tragic sequels. What would it lead to? The South and the West, while entertaining the greatest hostility to the North, appeared, none the less, to look upon the Ulster Volunteer Movement with a smile or a sneer. “One Catholic is the equal of ten Orange¬ men , it was maintained with a sarcastic shrug, and the Nationalist “Molly Maguires” were paraded as more than a match for any number of Northern Unionists, however well armed they might be. We read too, of the Con¬ ferences at Buckingham Palace; of the efforts of the King to pour oil on the troubled waters; of the attacks of radical newspapers on the King in conse¬ quence; of Mr. Asquith’s immediate and scornful reply to these attacks; of Mr. John Redmond’s demands and threats; of Sir Edward Carson’s protests; of the final breakdown of the Conferences—and meanwhile the horrors of civil war continued to stare us in the face. In France, L'Affaire Caillaux was all that most people seemed to talk or think of, though certainly the Quai d Orsay was far more aware of the cloud in the East than was Downing Street. Russia, somewhat enigmatic, while wrestling with her labour riots, kept a sharp eye on the Balkan situation, as well she might, for it was considered that the Austro-Hungarian demands on Serbia were an indirect, but none the less purposed challenge to her interests there. The ever memorable thirteen days”, preceded as they had been by nearly WAR MEMORIES 213 urop r caim ' began ' as an an ultimatum had, until that time nev i ^ ° n tke 2 '^ rd July. Such of European po^r alreadv ™ ^ ° f '. The delicate balance disturbed, and we entered upon tho^f ‘‘tv? Cqu , lhbrmm ’ was dangerously then know them as such) wondering , thlr *® en days " (though we did not had the morning newsjmpers'bee^so^ow^in^e^^^'^^ 1116 ^ Never appeared so halting and so shrouded «, achmg us; never had diplomacy that many of us find it somLwhatliffie hT ' ^ “ matt6r ° f faCt ' 1 thi ’* time “open secrets”, and what has since h re ™ ember what were at that chronological place by a later adjustment tT" ^ int ° its however, few of us seemed willin r ( Th gh the tlmes were troublous, - a vast It,, ropean "L l ° v “' e rV l,S ‘ l last days of July (one mZt 7 T V T * and as late a * the very boldly to our illusions, through the upsTnd d^ m ° St ° f US stiH clung us. Such an interlarding of good Zd bad ^ Which reached by side with the news of the Sorbin ‘ neWS ’ ° f ° Cal and general! Side came reports of the Dublin riots causing,s th ^ Austro ' Hun S a rian Note, very next day we were told that the F g ^ greatest uneasiness; but the threatening than it asserted itself with all the greater assurance h d f 'T® ° Ur confider >ce re- On the 28th, however, Austria had declar, d beCaUSe ° f the recent depression, danger threatened the whole of Eurooe anTT UP ° n Serbk ’ the most fearful the English press to IrishloyaKy "S’*Z appeaIs made in the call; “In the face of dVsaster'let u ^ ^ the ranks "' and rose, only to fall again. ' K together - So our hopes fell Scenes of great excitement had been ronnrf^ r • reply was made public. The usual Saturdav fr ° m Pa ” S when the Serbian ing through tho streets. ,,’,re“hS »,U T”'" 8 '*>“*' »»*- strolling crowds. This stirred the in r ^ unwonted enthusiasm by the Syndicalists who, setting up a protesting shou^of “A 7 asT f° UP ° f y ° Ung instantly mobbed by patriotic onlooker, ,h J A - * trots ansI were France! Vive VArmee* ” Tho r \ 10utmg ln th eir turn: “ Vive la ing a, the Quai d Orsay, II,™ y„„ Scbbn. Jg “communication” which to many F,™ japprehension by his famous of the Agadir coup *° b ' “ were with the French Fleet and there • th °, Pnme Mlm ster, Viviani, taining UuinterrupUd *° » * vaded and treops were sent to reinforce the frontim pre- S ioni^C:r«r"S2 , 8 ri Austro-Russian ten- to be a concen "f ^ In Belgium, pmcution.rymiSesXtS- and Nam£ were ££££? ~ " h “' - THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY had also been begun in England, the Admiralty Second and Third Fleets to be in readiness in case darker; Europe was rapidly arming; i their frontiers; little Belgium, defend her neutrality, while Germany by this time, what was going on there! Yet, the world seemed bristling with war preparations, there were still many of us who did not think that war was inevitable. Surely itcould be averted, even at the eleventh hour. There might be hot words and threats, Austria would of course have her revenge on Serbia, but war would be con¬ fined to a small spot in the far East, and Europe in general would cool down. So we who had no political wisdom, argued, the wish being father to the Precautionary measures issuing orders to the First, of need. Day by day the situation grew France and Russia continued to strengthen mustering all her forces, determined to ci~- —well no one was quite sure, while all - WAR MEMORIES 215 and lift the little one up on his shoulder, giving his hand to the other, as he still strode on. Within a few yards of us he stopped, and sent the children chasing a rabbit which dashed past at that moment, bounding joyously through the low, sweet heather, and he came on alone. He held a crumpled telegram in one hand, and his face was like carved marble, but there was a fire in his eyes that I have always been glad I saw. “Well, its war!” was all he said, looking at his wife. She did not need to be told any more; she knew the rest. “How soon are you going?” she asked, quietly, steadily. “Now,” he answered, in an even tone. “Will you come back to the Inn with me and help me pack? Good-bye,” he continued, turning to me. “May we leave the kiddies with you for a bit, and would you mind bringing them home—by and by?” The children had run up, just then, and were tugging at his coat, eager to tell him about the rabbit. He kissed each one of them tenderly, and then, with his wife beside him, he walked silently away,—they were both very young, and life was dear. As they came to a dip in the cliffs which would hide them from us, he turned for a moment, and waved. I never saw him again,—so swiftly and so simply does an old world pass away. He went out to France at the earliest opportunity, and gave his own life for the life of a wounded comrade. Later in the day I too packed my bags, intending to go up to London to offer my services. I did not yet know in what capacity, but that seemed to make little difference just then. To my dismay, I found that I was no better than a prisoner on that tiny spot of earth; that the Government, imme¬ diately war had been declared at eleven o’clock the night before, had taken full control of the railways of Great Britain, and that all trains, for a day or two at least, were to be used for the transport of troops, stores and food supplies only. I confess that I felt like a caged animal, and the day dragged itself out interminably; but of course, like everyone else caught napping, I had to make the best of things. As it turned out, however, I did not need to wait till I got up to London to have my first, if comparatively mild glimpse of war conditions, for after dark when, alone, I stole out into the soft Cornish night, and down to the beach not far from the small Inn where we were stop- ping—the beach where only the night before we had all sat happily watching the stars come out, and listening to the soft wash of the waves—there, to my great surprise, a short distance from the shore, a battleship lay, a huge black mass grim and silent. The home waters were being well protected by the Navy One wondered how she had crept up so stealthily, for, an hour or so before she had not been there, and as I looked and thought of what it signified to have a solitary battleship standing like that, close in to shore, I became aware of something else which made my pulse beat quicker. As though he had suddenly sprung from the very sands themselves, close to the water s edge black and sharply silhouetted against the clear, grey silver of the sea, ™ march inn the lonely coast-guard, erect and alert, in full service kit, rifle 216 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY on shoulder—I could see the sharp outline of the barrel as he moved. Now one knew that war had really come, and that over there, across the waters, lay France, and battle-fields, and burning villages, and dying men. Turning home again, I passed in unnoticed at the little entrance gate, and walked through the silent garden, across the dewy lawn, past groups of great white dahlias shining like silver lamps in the summer darkness; the roses with a poignant fragrance scenting the still evening air, as though their sweet¬ ness were being pressed from their very hearts by the dark hours through which they were passing. But all this loveliness belonged to the old world which was gone—and gone so swiftly—for out there lay the great battleship, and not far away that lonely coast-guard watched and listened; and just across the Channel, France (the France we knew so well and loved) was fighting for her life. I was able to get up to London some forty-eight hours later, and on the way became well aware that we were indeed irrevocably at war, for all the railway lines were closely guarded, especially at vulnerable places, and at many points we passed detachments of British soldiers, massed close to the lines, evidently waiting entrainment. Reaching town, I found a transform¬ ation which had taken place, as it were, over night. It was literally bristling with war preparations, and looked curiously unfamiliar; yet strangely enough, one felt that one was seeing, perhaps for the first time, the real community, as we may view an old friend suddenly wakened from the comfortable lethargy of ordinary, daily life, exalted, and on the eve of a great sacrifice, when we recognize that we are now seeing the real man, hitherto but dimly felt behind all the veils of the personality—the real man, the real friend whom we have always loved. When I had left London three weeks before, it had been in normal condition, with its endless streams of taxis, busses, delivery wagons drawn by sturdy, well-fed horses, and all the other familiar home sights. Now it was like an armed camp, largely khaki hued, where before it had been drab greys and blacks; unimaginably busy and electric. One of London’s charms before the War, was its repose, its ease; but with the 4th of August one may say that the old-time quiet and deliberate calm passed away, never, perhaps, to return; and in the weeks that followed, while I was looking for my “chance”, I often had to stop and collect my wits in order to assure myself that I was still living and moving in the old, lately familiar and dear haunts, for now, day and night, day and night, troops were marching through the streets. Often through the dark hours one heard them pass. Oh, the sound of marching men in the night! Can anyone who has heard it, in hours of danger, ever forget it? In the great parks and gardens, where formerly there had been strolling, leisurely crowds, one now saw soldiers in full campaigning kit; station platforms were filled with them, sometimes resting, their rifles stacked, while they waited further orders. In many of the squares and open spaces, raw recruits, without uniforms and carrying dummy rifles, were receiv¬ ing their first instructions and their first drilling. In other open spaces, quantities of gun carriages were massed, ready for transport. Motor cycles, WAR MEMORIES 217 with their despatch riders, dashed noisily to and fro; military cars, with impor¬ tant looking occupants, came from all directions, and drew all eyes. Carrier s carts, with their old legends still betraying their late owners and their legitimate employment, were driven through the streets, metamorphosed into ammuni¬ tion wagons. Bow Street had issued warrants authorizing the military authorities to seize motor cars, horses—anything which was likely to be of use to the Army, and the requisitioning of horses, especially, had its humorous side, for the astonishment of the driver, swiftly and unceremoniously relieved of his horse, and sometimes left, whip in hand, still perched high up on the seat, was most amusing. Any well-conditioned horses, strong and fit for army use, were liable to find themselves transformed in the wink of an eye, from private “drays” into Government servants. Carter Paterson, that friend of all householders, is said to have furnished in those first days of the War a great quantity of horses which were shipped to Southampton forth¬ with, on their way to France and Belgium. Hospitals were being started everywhere, and travellers were swarming back from Germany with tales of hair-breadth escapes. Whitehall was one of the most interesting sights in London. From Trafal¬ gar Square to the Houses of Parliament it was a seething mass of humanity, crowds so thick that you wondered where all the people had come from, and if the rest of the London area had been emptied in order to furnish these crowds. At the entrance to Downing Street one could hardly push one’s way through; in front of the Admiralty and the War Office it was a solid wall, —particularly did the War Office seem to attract the crowds. There was a reason for this, for after the temporary easing of the Irish situation, there were two things in those early days which, I think, heartened us all more, even, than we guessed at the time,—the splendid and generous response of the Dominions to the call of the Mother country: “When Britain is at war, we are at war” they declared; and the last minute recall of Lord Kitchener for home duty just as he was leaving England to return to his post in Egypt. I think the whole of the British Empire gave a deep sigh of relief when they knew him to be installed at the War Office, when they knew that he was at the helm; for even the severest of his critics had to admit that there was no one who gave to the public mind such a sense of security, while, at the same time, firing the public imagination as “K. of K.” did. Whatever he sadp brought conviction; whatever he asked met with instant response. Thulr while at first many people declared that “the War would be short and bloody, and over by Christmas,” there were always those who retorted: “Kitchener says it will last three years,—and he knows if anyone does.” And when his first “call to arms” rang out, when he asked for the first hundred thousand men, the response was beyond all expectation, and was a conclusive proof not only of what he himself could accomplish, but also of Great Britain’s apprecia¬ tion of him. Great Scotland Yard, the headquarters of the London Recruiting District, was invaded as soon as war was declared, and within forty-eight hours, if I remember correctly, divisional recruiting stations had to be opened 2I g theosophical quarterly in many parts of London, and, of course, in the provinces There were steady streams of applicants; crowds of men in all walks of life gathered outs^eeve^ recruiting office as quickly as it was installed, and in somecasesthevolunteers were so persistent and so eager, that mounted police had to be called p hold them in check. It was reported that the army recruiting authorities found it necessary to keep some of these offices open all night in order to deal with the men who had waited doggedly through long hours for their turn for, in general, only five or six could be admitted at once. T le wee g out” was put through with care but also with despatch. It was deeply stir¬ ring to watch the faces of those men who were, for one cause or another weak heart, myopia, flat foot, etc.—disqualified for active service. iey came out, some of them, with an air of dejection which did them great honour. No doubt many, if not most of them, found service of a different sort in less exacting fields, but the faces of some of the “rejected” are a dear and proud memory to me. No lukewarmness there! Kitchener’s New Army was rapidly taking shape, and we civilians drew a deep breath of relief in consequence. But it was not only the men who were mobilized. The volunteering of the women was magnificent; their response was Nationwide. From all parts of the country they came forward in a mass, clamouring to help, and soon the daily papers had to begin printing long articles of advice: “How to be Useful in Wartime.” Women accustomed all their lives to the utmost luxury and comfort, turned their backs without a thought on the old life of ease, and eagerly embraced the new conditions of hardship and danger, or of very dull and unremitting work. They petitioned for work of any sort. I remember so well at one of the Wartime Industrial Depots, hearing one day a most exquis¬ itely refined-looking young woman say, with ill suppressed eagerness and evident and complete sincerity: “I’ll scrub floors, I'll do anything if only you will take me. My husband has gone out as a common trooper, and I cannot bear that he should give more than I do. We women can at least try to do, in our small way, what our men are doing.” Later I learned that she and her husband were well known in the world of letters. She was only one in thousands who sought toil and drudgery as their small contribution. Many women filled the posts left vacant by their husbands who had enlisted; or, if fitted, they volunteered as despatch riders or as ambulance drivers, or as mere carters, or for work on the land. Of course the Red Cross and the St. John Ambulance, being such ancient and honourable institutions, were, so to speak, always mobilized, and detachments of nurses needed but their marching orders to be in the field as quickly as transport could get them there; but there were also the V.A.D.s (those Voluntary Aid Detachments which were supple¬ mentary to the Territorial Medical Service, and of which many of us had never even heard until then); the Women’s Emergency Corps and many other organizations, all of which were as busy as the Army Recruiting Stations. No one can ever say that there was any lack of response to the new conditions of life on the part of England's women, for they, like the men, rose to meet that call to arms. 219 WAR MEMORIES We all felt the advancins ‘TtS pared for shocks of a1 ' sort M ^ whic h was among the first_ to b had r* sex**-*- women and.children asjell as^ ^ ^ ^ o{ the houses, while firing Dinant; of the sacking which we read of the terrible fate <* ^ ^ and lonely farm ^ Burgomasters execu m of Uhlans after.^icTwere destroyed, the werese on fireby ro g^ chered; of convents which w^ ^ of heU ^f^d pensionnaires turned adrift, German hordes had begun nuns and p but too evident that tr von Bethmann- were opened, and it as t he Imperial Chancel , deepen , if the O d Conte p ^ ^ bagpipes; we watched_ that g sweep of troops drums or the s e ver f org et the mg ^ speed? “bonnets tipp the mont hs to come the H g who> because of gaily and w eezi • d {ame as fighters, for 1 bewildered enemy 7 0rk , d y s ee through the palings, to the pa«d ff t here from the near-by I could see t K chelsea pensioners, who had h re imen t of Regulars scarlet-coated, . ed what was taking plac • • f or its march Chelsea Hospita . we saw so many go!) was in ^ nQ bustle, 220 THE 0 S 0 PHICAL QUARTERLY of command rang out, and the serried lines seemed to stiffen, if anything to grow firmer. Then, like one living organism, those men (as it were one man) marched away, most of them never to come back. To the thunder of drums they marched, to the crashing of martial music; heads up, eyes forward, as though seeing only their goal, with a kind of superb indifference to everything else. The crowds which stood watching were silent, awed by that sight, but men there were in plenty who quietly raised their hats, standing bare¬ headed, while the women’s faces were aglow with pride, and even the children seemed touched by the greatness of that moment. It makes me profoundly indignant whenever I read or hear it said that Great Britain went into the War for economic reasons. That is not true and no one will ever forget the agony of those hours when England’s politicians seemed to be wavering, and when, as we have learned since, some of them actually did waver. There can be no possible question regarding the feeling o England as a whole. Her people cared nothing whatever for economic reasons. They were outraged at what had been done; they felt that Great ntain s honour,^and so their own, was in the balance, and when Germany’s proffered bribe to England was made known; when the people at large understood that their country had actually been offered a “price” if she would remain neutral, public indignation knew no bounds. When war was declared there was a universal cry; “Thank God we are in it! We can continue to look the world in the face. Those of us who saw the men of the First Expedi¬ tionary Force march out, know better than to believe that they went fo^the sake of so cold an ideal as an economic reason. Besides which, we have been Do ie nor ny aCC K Un r' by S ° ldierS themselves < of their reasons for enlisting Do we not remember (just to mention one) the story appearing first in an evening paper, about the London Scottish, “our Scottish ”, one offhe “crack ” Territorial Regiments, whose intrepid and resolute stand at Messines on SsheTh 3 ’ T° n S , UC \ WldeSpread admir ation, and which General Allenby (as he then was) spoke of as “worthy of the best traditions of British Resrular SZfwho^ St °H ry °! th : fight and itS Sequel has bee " retold by* a^young soldier who descnbes its effect on him before he had enlisted savinv <Zf g soon as he had read it, he hurried to the nearest re^’^Z is an their thinning rank,, and the third Se Td „ 7 " 7 ’T was left of the London Scottish returned uTTes Bu“ttev C t^ hi^in o^a str^he^wi'th’their’own^Uled^nd'woluided 11 ^^hght no matter wha, hi. „«To ?£ c,T„* TT German and treated him as one of their own ” Thn H S ? b ° yS took the of his charity, and for the honour of the regiment, tended to him firs^while" WAR MEMORIES Does that sound like an economic reason? When we remember the glorious Old Contemptibles as we saw them march away, have we no better monument to raise to them than that? For one of the most splendid memories which any of us can hope to keep untarnished is the air of serene detachment from all the lesser interests of life, the high-hearted equanimity with which they went. We have recently been reminded that the tradition of the British soldier is to “go out without a word.” That is at all times wholly British— it is true whether a matter of facing death or of facing irremediable loss, and what is true of the Army as a whole is therefore true of individual soldiers. I have always loved the story about Lord Roberts who, at his club one day, during the South African War, was reading aloud to others assembled in the room, the latest casualty list, just brought in. As he read of those killed in action, and as name after name went by, suddenly he came upon the name of his only son, the first intimation he had of his death, but when he came to it he read it out as clearly and steadily as he had the rest, without a shade of hesitation, finishing the list, which was a long one, in the same quiet voice, and when he had finished, with a little nod to his companions, he turned, erect and soldierly as always,—and went out without a word. That was the spirit of the Old Contemptibles. So we, still sitting at home in safety, watched our men go out, and read of the onrushing storm which they had gone to meet. In due course we were officially informed that the Expeditionary Force had been safely landed, in France. Then casualty lists came pouring in, and as those fateful dayy passed, one by one, and as they shaped themselves into weeks, it became more and more a matter of consuming importance to discover how one could make the best use even of one’s inefficiency. It was a simple matter for most men, —the taking of an active part in the War. They could fight, thank God! They could fight with pucka rifle and bayonet, or with trench mortars or hand grenades or any other kind of weapon as the case might be. But with us who were women it was not so easy, not if you wanted to get into the thick of it, which of course most of us did, and I soon found that “war work” under these conditions, did not drop into one’s lap. It was not a question of wanting 222 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY to do the work; the question naturally was: “If we sent you to the front, what could you do ? Are you a trained nurse ? Can you drive an ambulance ? 9 ’ To both of these questions I, personally, was obliged to answer “No.” But I had made up my mind that I was going to get abroad, even though I seemed to be regarded as lacking in all the requirements necessary for foreign service, and I refused to look upon the situation as an impasse. So I did whatever work I appeared to be fitted for, and in leisure moments I continued my active service search. I used to ask: “If I join such and such a unit, do you think it will be sent abroad?” “We cannot promise you that,” was the usual answer, so I would turn away and go back to the rolling of bandages and the knitting of socks. At last I heard of a unit which was being organized by someone I knew, who told me, sub rosa, that she had every reason to hope that it would be sent to Belgium if its prospective members got certain First Aid Red Cross Certificates. The Red Cross classes had already started, but I got permission to join them, as a late comer, trusting to pass the exami¬ nation when the time came. We all worked hard, attending lectures, at which we took copious notes; in the intervals bandaging unfortunate Boy Scouts, furnished us for the purpose; applying tourniquets until their poor little hands became quite black and swollen as a result of our inexperienced methods; trying every kind of First Aid experiment on them. We were very zealous m this work, and generally, by the time we had each got our Boy Scout’s arms and legs done up in splints for imaginary compound fracture- had en¬ veloped his head in yards and yards of gauze; had tied up his jugular vein; had wound thick compresses over his chest (pneumonia of course); and had added an abdominal band as a final touch, what was still visible of the original Boy Scout was really not worth mentioning-a mouth or an ear or two, no more. Had those small Boy Scouts, issued to us by the Commissariat for our private consumption, not been young and tender, and therefore very innocent and ong-suffermg, there would have been open mutiny among them. Thev cer¬ tainly did their “bit”! Yet after all our efforts; after the class had success¬ fully graduated, we were told that the official forming of us into a unit would not be done for the present.” No explanation. That settled it. “Bother units. I said to myself, “I’m not going to sit here stuffily to be strangled by tarteT'ani i™ 'T 1^ W f Wi " ^ ° V6r bef ° re 1 have 50 ™ch winter !'" £ t\° T m “’ 1 m g ° ing t0 get int0 1 ^fuse to be f g ‘ ° 1 began to look about for an independent opening, and of course, I found one almost immediately. ’ Volunteer. {To be continued) j SYMBIONTICISM AND THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES' T HE term symbiosis or symbionticism is used by the biologist to signify an associational life of two dissimilar organisms. It may often happen that the association is mutually advantageous, but, on the other hand, it may as often come about that one of the partners gains at the expense of the other. Indeed it is all but impossible to draw lines of demarcation in a graded series of symbiotic associations which range from partnerships indif¬ ferent to both contributors, through various shades of mutualism, to the extreme of parasitism in which one symbiont preys upon and often ultimately destroys its companion. The lichen which lives upon a tree trunk derives a certain small advantage from its position. It is no longer subject to the destructive competition of the more robust soil vegetation; it is lifted into the light and air and it is able to obtain its slender requirement of food salts and water from a substratum which would be fatal to most plants. Likewise the Spanish moss whose grey, beard-like streamers hang from the trees in Southern woodlands, is but a harmless air-plant which has utilized the shoulders of a tall friend as a convenient method of getting up in the world. But it is very easy to pass from such an innocent “leaning on” to a condition of true parasitism with its attendant degradation. Parasitic plants lose their leaves; their green colour, upon which depended their ability to live an inde¬ pendent life, is taken from them, and they become degenerate images of their independent brothers of the same family. Parasitic animals may lose their sense organs and their powers of locomotion. Their digestive systems may atrophy, and at the extreme of degeneracy, such as is seen in the parasitic crab, Sacculina , the whole body becomes a repulsive sac anchored to its host by cancer-like roots. But the host, too, may be made to pay a penalty for submitting to the ravages of the parasite. There are certain flowering plants which become sqj dependent upon the fungi which invade them that they lose the ability ter carry on their essential vital functions without aid. Their very seeds cannot germinate unless the fungus slave is at hand to feed the young seedlings, and the plant dies if its parasitic associate is torn from it. Yet the fungus is destined to be ultimately devoured. For a brief protection and a chance to feed on the kitchen scraps, it is willing to be offered up on the host’s table. The relation reminds one of that of Sybarite and slave in some dark tale. The orchids are notable sinners in this respect. They are associated with 1 Wallin, I. E., Symbionticism and the Origin of Species; Baltimore, Williams and Wilkins, 1927. 223 224 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY certain fungi (mycorrhiza), and the association has become obligatory to both parties. Have we not been told in another connection that certain orchids “have an atmosphere which is distinctly evil”? Our study at this time, however, is not concerned with parasitism, but rather with that type of mutualistic association which is beneficial to both contrib¬ utors, and which, though it may well involve certain sacrifices, does not necessarily imply the weakening of either party. Seeking for illustrations, one is embarrassed by a wealth of pertinent material, though only a few examples need be given here. The hermit crab, which adopts an empty snail shell for its home, may carry about with it, affixed to its house, a colony of stinging sea anemones. The latter picks up fragments of the foods which escape from the voracious jaws of the crab, while the crustacean itself is protected from the assaults of its enemies by the living battery of stinging cells mounted upon its castle wall. Certain insects have entered into symbiotic relations with one another. Well known are the associations of ants with their “aphid cows”. Another example is that of white ants, or termites, which provide themselves with insect pets much as we ourselves play big brother to cats and dogs. The striking symbiotic relation between insects and flowers forms almost a science in itself. In extreme cases, such as that of the yucca and the pronuba moth, the relation is obligatory for both participants, since the moth deliber¬ ately pollinates the flower and then lays her eggs in the young fruits where her larvae may feed upon the developing seeds. All these associations involve rather complex multicellular animals or plants, and there is little possibility that the combination would be considered a single organism by the biologist; but certain microscopic races of living things effect such extremely intimate associations with their hosts that they sometimes seem to be integral parts of its body. For example, the ordinary Amoeba is a colourless one-celled animal. But Amoeba has two close relatives, Chloramoeba and Chrysamoeba, which respectively contain green and brown granules in their bodies. The green granules of Chloramoeba are known to be symbiotic green algal cells (zoochlorellae), while the brown granules of Chrysamoeba are associated brown algal cells (zooxanthellae). So the zoologist recognizes three distinct genera of these allied amoeba, yet admits that two of them have arisen through an intimate association of the animal with certain algal cells. Can it be possible that in this peculiar fact we have a long neglected key to the profound mystery of the origin of species? Darwin does not explain how new species arise; he merely shows how natural selection may work upon a basis of organic variations which are already provided, and, while conserving the “fit”, may destroy those which are ill adapted to the environmental conditions. The question as to why there should have been any variations in the first place, is left as an unsolved mystery. Can it, then, be possible that in a principle usually considered to be a mere biological curiosity and an aberration from the normal course of nature— SYMBIONTICISM AND THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 225 namely in symbiosis-we have all the time held in our hands the key to the TTclr—e is a resemblance hybridism. It is becoming increasingly evident that P through the latter process. In order, howler that J, unite> the species must usually be ^ ^^XnSsm the parti- whereas in the theoretical genesis of new spe y invo lve the whole cipants may be of widely diverse affinities and the blending inv by hybridism and by symbionticism: the for ™* of C g lls t0 be attracted latter, and both are but manifestations of a tendency ot to one another. fnllv the numerous and peculiar f 4-v.of associations between algae ana iungi cue ^ however, that the asso ection> since they constitute the group of importance in the present spec ies of lichen is a sym- plants known as lichens. In o her y ^ ^ ^ ^ they biotic organism, yet the characters b I tanist has been obliged to give h “* ! the Eam ”‘ from mere indifterent association, through will be well to Before dea.inn ^Sr “X pSoS^llogionl mystery- turn aside or a mo Whence arose the primordial cells with that of the origin of the cell • believe that the present free- their nud^r and c^toc e^^p q£ ^ water> perpetuates the living, unicellular pbat a P ^ each tiny organism lives conditions of an earlier worl individuals of a species increase in an independent existence, an Furthermore we are assured that x^berbyttesiinple^^®^ 6 ■ mu lticellular organisms arose, from this swarm of discrete u of prev iously free-living cells Whether their origin was due to a whether it arose from the (much as birds of a feather &**(£*).°r £££* division o{ an coherence, or better, the non-ffis undue* but in any c ase , the result was to original cell, would be ar o e ^ multicellular species. Physical ° f hi8h " dee, “ 226 theosophical quarterly into manifestation, and started the declaration of the hierarchical principle of which the whole drama of evolution has been the progressive revelation. There remains still the question of the genesis of the cell; it is unthinkable that it arose by a sudden leap out of inorganic matter. Such a supposition is as bad as Milton’s specially created lions pawing their way out of the encom- passing earth. Speculations relative to the genesis and the evolution of the cell, have not been wanting. Professor A. H. Church cuts the Gordian knot at a single stroke: “the nucleated cell . . . arose from nothing at all but the ionized sea-water; there was nothing else to make it from.” Very good, and in like manner man arose from an “amoeba”; but it is not always necessary to neglect the intermediate links in a chain of causation. Professor Minchin has suggested a line of primordial chromidial particles arising from colloidal matter of the sea, to organize later into biococci (which he compares definitely to existing bacterial micrococci), to undergo reaggregation into a nucleus which secreted cytoplasm and became thereby a typical cell. Such hypotheses have appeared so highly tenuous to most biologists that their discussion has been generally regarded as a waste of time, since they were but speculation resting upon no known facts. But let us regard the problem more intimately. Just what is it that must be evolved out of ionized sea-water? The typical cell is a unit mass of cyto¬ plasm containing a nucleus. The nucleus is a body of extreme structural and physiological complexity; it governs the activity of the cell and seems to bear the hereditary material of the organism in the form of a substance known as chromatin. The cytoplasm is a colourless, viscous emulsion made up of an elaborate mixture of chemical compounds. It carries many kinds of visible bodies, but the most important of these, from our present standpoint, are the chondriosomes or mitochondria. These are normal cytoplasmic constituents, and are sometimes present in such great numbers that, when properly stained, they become the most conspicuous bodies in the cell, reminding one forcibly of swarms of bacteria. They occur in the form of granules or rods, and seem to be ubiquitous in plant and animal cells. Reaching back no farther than 1890, when they were first described by Altmann, the literature upon these mysterious bodies has already grown to enormous proportions. Almost every conceivable function has been attributed to them. Benda (1899), and, later, Meves, stated that they became the myofibrils of muscle cells; Guillermond (1912) asserted that they became the chloroplasts of plants. Other inves¬ tigators have attributed to them the r 61 e of transformation into a wide variety of pigments and secretions in both plants and animals. Although in 1890, Altmann had named them bioblasts, and had described them as living bodies in the cell, and, in fact, as the ultimate units of living matter, his view was vigorously attacked and quickly lapsed from view. In 1922, Professor I. E. Wallin, in a published article, asserted that the chondrio¬ somes are actually bacteria living in symbiosis with the cell. In 1927 appeared a book by the same author, entitled Symbionticism and the Origin of Species, SYMBIONTICISM AND THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 227 in which he reasserts his belief in the bacterial nature of the chondriosomes, and, in addition, puts forward the startling thesis that the cell arose from bacterial fusion, and that symbiosis is a dominant factor in the origin of species. His view rests upon a series of careful comparisons between bacteria and chondriosomes in regard to staining properties, chemical and physical reactions, etc. But as a crowning proof that chondriosomes are really bacteria, he claims to have cultured them free from the cell in nutrient solutions. Wallin’s view has not been widely accepted, and it is still too early to say with assurance that chondriosomes are bacteria; the work must be repeated by other investigators, and the broader theory must run the fire of scientific criticism. It is this broader theory which interests us most, and we have already paved the way to its further consideration. Professor Wallin not only asserts that the chondriosomes are bacteria, but he boldly suggests that the cell arose in evolution from the symbiotic union of bacteria, and that the evolution, not only of the single-celled, but also of the multicellular races, was due to the successive invasions of different strains of these minute beings. It has long been known that the bacteria are without nuclei, and that in this respect they differ from all other organisms except their close relatives, the blue-green algje. They do, however, possess granules of chromatin-like material in their bodies, and this substance is supposed to be the essential material which forms the basis of the nucleus in higher organisms. Bacteria are the smallest known plants,—certain micrococci, for instance, are so tiny that 1,000,000,000 could be accommodated inside a cubic millimeter of water. Furthermore, bacteria and blue-green algae constitute the most ancient plant fossils known. In addition to all this, some species are capable of utilizing the carbon-dioxide of the air to produce carbohydrates, though they possess no chlorophyll, and they can also absorb free atmospheric nitrogen for protein synthesis. Organ¬ isms with such an assemblage of peculiar features, suggest an early earth where conditions for life were more austere than those which characterize the world to-day. So from a basis of structure, history and physiology there is nothing which negatives the idea that the bacteria may have been ancestral to the nucleated cell. Professor Wallin suggests that bacteria of various kinds entered into| symbiotic organizations to form the diverse, elementary, planktonic races the sea. Their chromatin granules aggregated to make a nucleus, while the residue of their combined somas became the cytoplasm of the cell. The chondriosomes of our present cells are those more recent bacterial invaders whose fusion with the earlier cytoplasm is not yet accomplished fully, and whose entrance and blending with the original “symplasm” transforms the organism into a new species. The bacteria are supposed to yield their units of hereditary substance (chromatin) to the mass of germ-plasm already in the cell, so that the whole combination can be perpetuated by heredity. Such new species may be at first merely physiological—viz., characterized by a new 228 theosophical quarterly function which separates them from previous specie, evident elsewhere, symbionticism is quite capa e 0 g d .. It logical transformations. To quote Professor Wallin s own for appears to the author that Symbionticism offers a rational exp many of the variations in the morphology and physiology of P la " ts animals. When these variations are of sufficient magnitude and P" en J® they constitute new species. The fact that mitochondna are t^ver^y present in the cells of all organisms higher than the are bacterial in nature and that microsymbios.s can deterrmne mo^hol P and physiologic changes in organs and cells, can lead than that Symbionticism is a fundamental causative factor m the origin of And now, having listened to the words of a modern maa turn to The Secret Doctrine, Vol. I, p. 281, to a passage written by Madame Blavatsky in 1888. “Science teaches us that the living as well as the dead organisms of both man and animal are swarming with bacteria of a hundre various kinds; that from without we are threatened with the invasion of microbes with every breath we draw, and from within by leucomaines aerobes anaerobes and what not. But Science has never yet gone so far as to assert with the Occult doctrine, that our bodies, as well as those of animals plants and stones, are themselves altogether built of such beings; which, with the exception of the larger species, no microscope can detect. So far as regards the purely animal and material portion of man, Science is on its way to discoveries that will go far towards corroborating this theory. Chemistry and Physiology are the two great magicians of the future which are destined to open the eyes of mankind to great physical truths.” Are our bodies, then, built up from bacteria and smaller lives. H. P. Blavatsky asserted it, and the findings of the modern trained scientist go far to corroborate her words. It will be noted furthermore that the above quoted passage refers to organisms too small for the microscope to detect. This, too, is significant in view of the modern problem of “filtrable viruses”. It has been known for some time that no visible causal organism can be connected with certain transmitted diseases such, for example, as Texas cattle fever. Body fluids from diseased animals may be filtered through porcelain filters and yet the clear filtrate, seemingly free from particles so far as the microscope can show, will produce the disease if introduced into healthy animals. This has led to the theory of causal organisms outside the limit of microscopic visibility. It has been claimed that they can be cultured upon gelatine where they produce colonies visible to a compound microscope. Such colonies must, in theory, be made up of myriads of separate individuals. The very fact that they can build up visible colonies implies that they are living units possessed of repro¬ ductive power. Once more modem science tends to corroborate the words of The Secret Doctrine 2 :—“ beings which, with the exception of the larger species, no microscope can detect.” a See also Vol. I, pp. 268, 269. 278. 279. 281 1 1 seq. (1893 ed.) SYMBIONTICISM AND THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 229 One more scientific approximation to the great truths given out by the custo¬ dians of Wisdom many years ago. Slowly, year by year, their number increases while each scientific advance is hailed as a “new discovery . If, in trut , Symbionticism is a Principle which has played a considerable, or even a major, part in evolution, it holds a great significance for us. Principles have a way of being applicable to widely diverse fields. Here is a Principle which lifts organisms of diverse origin into a higher autonomy, to which each is indee subordinated, but to which each contributes and from which each receives. Furthermore, it is evident that the newcomers may perhaps be the ones who will shift the association to still higher levels, helping to generate a new species or, in other words making it possible for the organism to manifest a new and more dynamic Idea. RET To every man there openeth A Way and Ways and a Way, And the High Soul climbs the High Way And the Low Soul gropes the Low. And in between, on the misty flats, The rest drift to and fro. But to every man there openeth A High Way and a Low, And every man decideth The Way his soul shall go.—J ohn Oxenham. LODGE DIALOGUES VIII The duties of each moment under their baffling appearances, conceal the truth of the Divine Will. They are, as it were, the Sacrament of the present moment De Caussade. 4T Recreation I joined a group of Brothers and novices sitting in the \ garden. As I slipped noiselessly into a seat I heard one of the ^ Brothers saying:— . . “No, I cannot altogether agree with you. God is a Unity, not a diversity; being a perfect Unity he contains all diversity. There can, therefore, be but one Religion, one binding of the soul to God; ‘the Wisdom of God and the Power of God’, which binds to God, must be One, else how could it con¬ summate union with him? Yet, as there is great diversity of souls, in various stages of development, even in the limited range of consciousness available to our perception, so, this one Religion, to meet all those needs, must be subjected to a like diversity,—a diversity which, at times, may appear prac¬ tically antagonistic, even as the souls to which it ministers are antagonistic, but in essence still the same, springing from the same source, and binding back to that source. Would you hold a leopard and a butterfly with the same cord? God has an equal understanding in dealing with his children; and their diversity, which exists in him, is provided for by the corresponding diversity of custom and creed which also exist in him. See many religions as you see many kinds of men; see God, the Divine Light and Life, in them all,—the tolerance, the compassion, the unerring insight of the Law.” “The fault, then, lies in lack of insight?” asked a novice. “Not fault, surely”, the Brother answered, “but lack of evolution, of development. One thing that we greatly need is to take true measure of men, to see where they really stand; to expect neither too much nor too little of them; to stop measuring them by ourselves as yardstick. We are of little use in outer work until we have learned this. It requires great detachment: detachment from ourselves, first and foremost; then from human respect . “Charity also, I suppose”, someone added. “Charity is inseparable from detachment, nor can we have it without: ‘it follows as the night the day’. Detached from self, we shall always be detached from 'creatures’, and thus increasingly attached to God,—not above the world, nor apart from the world, but in the world, though not of it. Noth¬ ing entangles us with others or with life itself save self-love. Freed from that, we may behold those about us dispassionately, purely—therefore under- standingly and with sympathy.” 230 LODGE DIALOGUES 231 “I am so glad you did not say with kindness”, murmured another novice. A Brother near him heard, and laughed. “Yes, we have all suffered from kindness”, he said, “it is usually a heavy affliction, the trouble being its personal quality,—the gratuitous assumption, too often in it, that what the doer likes is also to our taste. Those who have lived much with kind people, know its wonderful training in patience.” There was a general laugh at this. “What you say proves my thesis”, said the first Brother, “the necessity of detachment for charity. When a man works from himself as centre, his works will come back to himself: when a man works from God as his centre, his works will return to God, and diffuse a divine blessing,—not his, as in the former case.” ‘‘May we go back to the subject of religions?” asked one of the company— I fancied he to whom the Brother had been speaking when I came. “Since there is then really one Religion, there is some justification for the attitude of those religious and denominations of religious (and in one guise or another it is the usual attitude) who hold that their particular form is the one and only true form, or at least the best; they are feeling after a truth even though they pervert it.” “A perversion proves the existence of a truth in its vicinity,” said a Brother. “And I should go a step further,” said the Brother who had spoken first. “The average understanding is still two-dimensional. Men think up and down and back and forth, some in a wide area, some in a narrow; but give them depth, make them think in, and they are confused, lost, feel themselves drowning in a fathomless ocean,—which it is, but no need to drown there. Now to minds of that type, whether good or bad does not matter, what is the use of trying to give them universal truths? They can have, with their instrument, no possible means of understanding what you say; and if you persist, and are successful in convincing them that there is something after all in what you are saying, your accomplishment is probably deplorable in its results. You will have robbed them of some of their zeal and enthusiasm. Unable to go in, their thoughts will spread over a portion of the larger territory you have given them and, become shallow, cease to have their strength of current; you will have injured, not have aided them. Take from an average Christian the idea that Christ is unique as a Master, and! you run a serious risk of taking Christ away from him altogether. It is characteristic of the two-dimensional mind to consider its truth in terms of superiority—the superiority that consists in being on top, on the surface; for to it, what is not on the surface is below; must therefore be wrong. His inherent feeling is that his Master, or his Church, must be the one and only Master or Church, or else it is not a real Master or Church at all. Here an incomplete instrument gropes after the profound truth that that which is divine must be One and indivisible; but brought to the surface of this mind it can be seen only in terms of surface, proportioned to its limitations. What Master has ever failed, in any demonstration of himself, to recognize this? 232 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY Has not the Christ, in all ages, appeared, to those who could see him, in forms of their understanding, in terms of their ‘religion’ and their time? Catholic to Catholic, Protestant to Protestant. What folly for either to claim that his vision is true and the other false. What folly upon folly to weaken the hold of either vision by explanations that cannot explain, by knowledge that obscures. O little man, of little knowledge, hold thy peace, lest a like fate befall thee. Give to thy brother more of his Christ, by deepening his love and devotion for what he can see, by purifying it, and increasing its power upon him. Stop there: his Christ, in the fulness of time, will do the rest. “So of all the religions; convert their followers to their own, not to yours. At the heart of each lies the one Religion sprung from the heart of God. Who am I to say by what cord God will have a soul bound to him ? But when, by means of his cord, the soul has been drawn in to the Centre from which he came forth, nay, long before he has reached that Centre, cords he no longer requires. When the soul enters the magnetic circle, he is drawn, drawn by the Love about him, by the Love within him. The cords fall away. He is not bound: he is a part.” On the last words sounded the Compline bell. In silence we prayed: “Save us, O Lord, while we wake, and watch us while we sleep; that we may watch with Christ, and rest in peace. Amen. “O Lord hear, O Lord grant, O Lord forgive.” Amen. Amen. Into the shadows of the quiet garden we silently dispersed. M. True philosophy is that which renders us to ourselves, and to all others who surround us, better , and at the same time more content, more patient, more calm, and more ready for ad decent and pure enjoyment. —Lavater. ELEUSIS Blessed is ke «*« ““ aZgs “ toZZlh, SO, U .niorsUsM «. «* «» divine. , , i _ ^AHE traveffer at Athens *h. r i I will find much to interest hi • it reac hes the place hallowed 1 the Sacred Way for some fif ^™ ted ’ es On leaving Athens the road in antiquity by the celebration o ^ pi a to’s Academy; then it win s paS ses the gardens which occupy count ry of hills covered with scan y through olive groves, and on past a dese rted monastery of Daphne, undergrowth. Half-way to mentioned in Pausamas which is probably on the site of a sanctu ^ P hrodite> where the Greek Description of Greece ^ !fie5ngs d^fands a'nd flowers, though now m peasant girls still make their g unexpectedly emerges onto alow pla , honour of the Virgin Mary. splendid sweep of a wide bay and m the and the sea is in view; there is P beauti{u l island of Salamis. T distance can be seen the outhne f , over the low-lying marsh land, and, Sacred Way leads along a causeway, built skirting the bay, ends at Eleusis. precinct venerated m Beyond the present village Shinto rites. Exeat,one ancient times as the place of ini w hich there remain little b« have revealed a number of sanctuar , ig a gro tto, in the slope of scattered stone columns and ^onume ^ far the most interesting of rising ground, known as the Cave o{ Initiat ion. Only the paving stones the archaeological ruins is the S reat 11 bamberi its roof supported by rows remain of what was once a vast squ 1 • RaU wh ere the initiated sat to of columns; tiers of step s . ™ * Iteries On one side, the tiers (which still watch the performance of the y w hich continues along the hillside, remain, cut in the rock )lead up.to af terra , towards the West, over thence the “enlightened coidd obtain a s^ndid^ ^ ^ d rehds the gleaming sea. Further on is m particular, is of interest as which have bee. found cm the mm. On, pla,^ , 0 two centra.^ showing all the deities of Eleusis, unknow n or unnamed God an^ figures designated as Theos and Thea the un ^ ^ ^ is unique m Goddess who presided over the iac meoti „ K , or etttain, of its bind, and sr "^st e X”». - -— the a “ es ot is a matter of considemlried^<mU^o ^destitute a com^tive^account of the Eleusinian rites, from the scanty 234 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY The pledge of secrecy was binding on all who approached the mysteries, and the penalties for divulging the teachings were severe. Yet, in classical times, the great number of those who took part in the rites would seem to show that there was no rigid selection and examination of candidates for initiation, for the ceremonies had become a popular ritual, within the reach of all who were not of depraved character. In the fifth century B.C., Aristophanes, in his comedy of the Frogs , could afford to laugh, without fear of penalty, at the procession of candidates making their way to Eleusis. At the same time, Socrates incurred some criticism for refusing to apply for initiation into the Eleusinian mysteries. It is probable that, by that time, the ceremonies were valued chiefly on account of the advantages they afforded to the initiated at the time of death, from the knowledge gained as to the underworld. Some writers criticized this, as providing an unfair advantage. Perhaps it was somewhat similar to the merit gained by pilgrims in the Middle Ages, who undertook certain journeys, or penances, or ritual acts, as affording plenary indulgence “applicable at the hour of death.” Whatever the conditions may have been in the fifth century B.C., it is certain that the origin of the Eleusinian mysteries went back into a far distant past, co-extensive with the “ante-Phidian sculptors and the pre-Homeric poets,” when, in truth, the Mysteries held the “world of thought and beauty.” By the time of the classical epoch of Greek history, the light that illumined that earlier age had grown dim; the Mysteries were no longer understood by men. It has been suggested in an article in the Quarterly (July, 1922) that the “publication and vulgarization (in the literal sense) of the substance of the Mysteries ” may have been either a cause or an effect of the “spiritual degenera¬ tion of Greece.” An attempt to reconstruct the ritual of the Eleusinian mysteries, as it has come down to us, may serve to show that the origin of all such ceremonies was divine, dating from the time when the Mysteries were kept very secret and holy, and divulged only to the few. Indeed, it has been hinted in The Secret Doctrine that all exoteric ceremonial shows traces of divine foundation, often misunderstood and travestied by popular superstition. All that the historian can do is to collect and set down the evidence, and leave it to the intuitive to clothe the facts in living thought,—to make the dry bones rise. There were definite stages in the ceremonial, which led from a preliminary purification ( catharsis ), through the united performance of sacrificial or ritual acts ( sustasis ), towards a revelation {telete or muesis), and on to a crowning vis¬ ion ( epopteia ). The sequence is interesting, and it may be noticed that much importance was attached, in Greek worship, to the need for purification. The Greater mysteries were held every year, after the harvest in the month of September; but all candidates for initiation must have received preliminary instruction in the Lesser mysteries, celebrated at Athens in the early spring, during the month of February. The candidate might then aspire to initiation as a mystes. Before the celebration of the Greater mysteries, heralds, in many of the Greek cities, proclaimed a “sacred truce.” The immediate preparation, ELEUSIS 235 , , „ On the first day the candidates at Athens, extended over several “ Come all ve who are pure of assembled, and the herald made P™ cl * whosoever hath not clean hands, heart and whose speech can be understood. at initiation." It seems - -—- dwells in a mantram. ^unification, it is thought that All the candidates had to undergo ri e p system of “confessional,” there may have been instituted, y ^ «■ P n ^ next day the cry went up, ‘‘To but authorities are not agreed as to this. ' the candidates to the the sea, Mystics," and a process.™‘ttfUed Way, On the ceremonial bathing, in two consecra driv e it down to the sea, following day each candidate had to provide q{ lower nature . and there make sacrifice^ P 08 ®* 1 * * orocess i on of pigs, as affording useful Aristophanes makes much fun P exte nded over some time, and comic relief in a series of ceremon^swh^h extended ^ ^ ordained which involved considerable strain and g , re was banned. Various on the third day, and every fon * of I® ca ndidateLsembled at nightfall for the processions took place, an na >’ miles Candidates were required to march to Eleusis, a distance of ftteen:^ , £ &ny woman chose to walk along the Sacred Way, u 1 * f or the privilege. All bore ride in a chariot, she should W* ^They .ere in L^Stta«luo“h,cMn name of the Deity. . , . F , eus i s the actual ceremonies were Once the processtah*! ^^^stri,ctaco»se»tiv«a«onnt performed m the great Hall, C0 „ sis ,ed of ritual acts, wh.ch were of what took place. The ceremo suggested that the “revel- followed by “revelations Some ^ ^ the help 0 f underground ations” wer e elab°r a tely staged by h l q{ archaeolo gists has shown apparatus and scenic effects. 13 t i t is certain that no subterranean structure, or secrc P typify the mournful wanderings some kind of mystery drama wm, “^Twho had been carried off by of Demeter in search of her d “ 8 ‘ P drama als0 sym bolised the n.ndp the god of the underworld. P° SS \J before it has attained the true ligWT ings of the soul in the regions of darkne , foreboding. The effect, on the spectators offln The centre the Hail, the Then suddenly, from a *“ red P'““ 5 „ This constituted the first deEtee Slth ^““hird degree was the most soimnn o, ad, showing 236 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY the result of that union, revealed in the fulness of knowledge. It is probable that a sacred feast fonried part of the ceremony. Clement of Alexandria, who claims to have been initiated in the second century a.d., afterwards disclosed the pass-word: “I have fasted, I have drunk the barley-drink, I have taken things from the sacred chest, tasted, and placed them back in the basket, and again in the chest.” The initiate pronounced the words, “I am free,” and then uttered an invocation, including a promise of secrecy, which ended with the words: ‘‘So elp me, Word of the Father which he spake when he established the whole universe in his Wisdom.” These words resemble well-known verses in the opening chapter of St. John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word. . . . things were made by him. ” They are also curiously similar to an Hermetic M a? w ent J qU °! ed m T>le Secrel Doctrine > which included an invocation,—“ by e Word, only Son of the Father, who upholds all things.” The writer of ] 6 SeCret Doctrlne comments on the fact that the invocation is exoteric in form, since, in esoteric teaching, ‘‘to speak of God is impossible.” Possibly the esoteric truth was concealed, at Eleusis, in the worship of Theos and Thea^ ie unknown God and Goddess who presided there over all the other deities.’ ey are unique in Greek worship, though, in later times, St. Paul, when in hirndedam" unt oyou. ” ^ ^ Who “ 76 ign0nmtly worship - wo^ C < e !? rati ° n ° f ^ myS u rieS WaS terminated b y hierophant with the d : . f Conx ompax - whlch are said to mean, ‘‘Watch and do no evil ” though it is not necessary to assume that this was other than a “blind” to their true meaning. They are supposed to have been Egyptian in origin and o have been the same as those used at the conclusion of the mysteriJof’ Isis More than one wnter-m particular Paul Foucart in Les Mysteres d'Eleusis has drawn attention to the similarity between the Eleusinian mysteries and the Egyptim n tual . H e concludes that Demeter is the same as Isis and that Dionysus is Osins; and this supposition is confirmed by various other authori- the S Cornaild W SSll>le Tf ° Ver ! 00k the si 8 nifican ce of the deities presiding over the Corn and Wine. It is said that in the third degree of initiation +1 Z«“ n V "7“.;°”" ” s “»»«««* ", tS. T! Tt ? b,r,h ’ de * th and -i** n«.™ r n/"S n Orphic teaching, much consideration was given to the eternal i f mumon with the Divinity, foreshadowed in ti^ pi • • . mea of corn- developed in Orphic ritual Ther v> i r euslnian n *- es , was further "I am the son of Earth and starry Heaven.” ELEUSIS 237 “I am perishing with thirst, give me to drink of the waters of memory. “I have paid the penalty of unrighteousness.” ‘‘I have flown out of the weary sorrowful wheel ( kuklos ) of life.” “Out of the pure I come.” “Thou art become God from man.” “ 0 blessed and happy one, thou hast put off thy mortality and shalt become divine.” In the last sentence one is reminded once more of St. Paul,—“that mortality might be swallowed up of life.” Foucart denies that there was any outer connection between the Orphic brotherhoods and the Eleusinian rites, though he stresses constantly the Egyptian origin of the mysteries. It is clear in any case that while identity of teaching is noticeable in the study of every true religion and brotherhood, this proves their unity of origin rather than any outer connection. At first sight it is somewhat confusing to find Plato, in a number of dialogues, referring with great reverence to the sacredness of the Mysteries, while his teacher, Socrates, refused to have anything to do with the Eleusinian rites. This is probably explained by the fact that in the time of Socrates, the ceremonial at Eleusis was a mere travesty of the original teaching, which had its source in a distant past. As to the true Mysteries, there are illuminating passages in Plato. It is well to remember that he has been accused of divulg¬ ing too much about the secret doctrine, to those not yet prepared to receive it. In the Phcedo is given the dramatic and moving scene of Socrates in prison, surrounded by his disciples who have come to be with him until his last hour, when he is compelled to drink the poison, and fulfil the sentence of death passed upon him. Socrates, in eloquent words, has described the glory and beauty of the immortal soul, and he comments: “ I fancy that the men who established our mysteries had a very real meaning; in truth they have been telling us in parables all the time that whoever comes to death uninitiated and profane will be in the mire, while he who has been purified and initiated will dwell with the gods. ‘For the wandbearers are many’, as they say in the mysteries, ‘but few the god-possessed.’ And by these last are meant, I believe, only the true philosophers, in the number of whom, during my whole life, I have been seeking, according to my ability, to find a place.” The “wand” of initiation is said to have been similar to that used by Prometheus,^ when he concealed the fire from Heaven in a hollow stalk. It was perha^^ afterwards used, during the ceremonial, as a torch. Students of Theosoph^^ will connect this with what The Secret Doctrine says about Kundalini. In the Phcedrus are many passages, of wonderful beauty, showing the joy that attends the study of true philosophy. It is said that he who recollects divine teachings and employs his memory aright, “is ever being initiated into perfect mysteries, and alone becomes perfect; he forgets earthly interests and is wrapped in the divine.” Of the true philosophers it is recorded: . ‘‘We beheld the essence of beauty and were initiated into mysteries. . . . which we 238 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY tomb ?„ which™ m to”*'15 rm - “ d n °*. yet enshrin ' d «»' Hvinj known teaching of the OrnhiV h \V 1° °J ster ln lts she11 -” It was a well- direct allusion fo secretS brothe [ ho °^ that the body was a tomb. A seen the mysteries of Eleusis and read th o^h' ’ t Pausanlas: " He who has The death and resurrection of the 0rphlc hooks, knows what I mean.” Orphic ritual. It is not known to ? y * US ' VaS perhaps the central fact of at Eleusis. A P£e an found a t m ®. xtent thls drama was re-enacted and declares, “he is worshiooed ^p^' ^ ° f pIaCes Sacred to Di °nysus, the Eleusinian the name of ^cchos.” In Mother, who searched in sorrow^or^ f® lty , Was Dem eter, the great Earth- well-known: the Maiden wandered too far^the^ddt 0116 ' J he myth is narcissus and other spring flowers m i 0 „Di7 fields one day, picking appeared in his dark chariot and’carried , Ut °’^° d °Jl the underworld, suddenly sought her, disconsolate and allTth mo ? ^ The ^’ s Mother plants drooped and died. Finally a com™ 6 • Wlth hef ’ and a11 Rowing Persephone should dwell for six months WaS effected whereby m the regions of darkness. The seasonal death* A !° ther ’ and f °r six months was thus connected with the journey of the s,^ re f urrecti °n of all nature light. The whole legend is given with a w S’ S° Ugh darknes s and through to Demeter, which * the H ° meric hym " the Mother, in her wandersca^oSZT? ^ 11 is Said was kindly received by Celeus and Metaneira’ ° ld woman - and rearing of their child, Demophoon and Dem^ 7 ^ 1 ^ 6 ' 3 her with the immortal. For this purpose she fed’him ° u eter . decided to make him night in the glowing fire on the hearth One d am , r0Sla ’ and concealed him by known to the panic-stricken parTn ts Once the T and mad e could no longer work the charm to mSce th^ eh M W&S r6Vealed - Dem ®ter gave to Demophoon (some say to his brother T . . mxaorU1 - Instead, she and seeds of wheat. She a dra ^-chariot, agriculture, and revealed the cult of the \ -° Peusis the methods of "to* sho -d them the ~ Tbe Hymn concluded / T?’ h ° ly mySteries which none LIv vilt ^ them her abroad, for the curse from the gods restrains thl ^ ° r int °’ 0r noise mortals who hath beheld thesethings S he^ Tf- H&PPy is he amon ? no part m them, hath never equal lot in / a u that 1S unlnit iate, and hath The significance of the wheat, in the^eu^ 11 ^ murk y & loon i-” understood. Other symbols are of interest An nt6S ’ Can be rea <Uy shows the goddess with a handful of poppief astellT^ ^ ° f poppies seem to have entered into th* ’ as a s heaf °f corn, and the ELEUSIS 239 legend, the beautiful youth Narcissus fell in love with his own form, seen reflected in still water. Unable to reach the image, he pined away and died, and was changed into the flower which bears his name. The flower, a six- pointed star, is sometimes taken as symbolical of the soul which has become enamoured of corporeal life, and has “fallen” into generation. It was the beauty of that flower which led Persephone away from the calm abodes of the deities, to be enticed into the region of darkness, there to learn, through suffering, before her return to the light of day. The comments of classical authors all show considerable reverence for the Eleusinian rites. Even Aristophanes, who has the comic-poet’s privilege of laughing at everything, while he jests, in the Frogs, about the procession of the candidates, yet describes the chants of the mystics in lyrics of surpassing beauty, which have been freely translated in these lines: “Let us hasten, let us fly Where the lovely meadows lie, Where the living waters flow, Where the roses bloom and blow, Heirs of Immortality.” It is probable that the teaching at Eleusis testified to the truth of Reincarna¬ tion, and that Pindar gained his hope of immortal life from the same teaching, with knowledge as to the end of all things, “and their source, which is divine.” Isocrates, in a panegyric, writes: “Demeter bestowed two priceless gifts, cultivation of the fruits of the earth, and the ceremony which brings to the initiated the sweetest consolation at death, and hope of immortality.” It is true that the materially minded looked on such knowledge as a safe guide-book to the journey after death, rather than as an incentive to earn immortality in this life. Plato refers to the fact that, in his day, the teaching of the mysteries had become degraded, by popular superstition, to the advantage of the “mystery-mongers,”—a condition of things which provides a striking analogy to what has happened in this century, since the swing of the pendulum of popular thought has led multitudes from scepticism to over-credulity in regard to any new or mysterious teaching. There is a passage in the Republic which tells of mendicant prophets who produce works by Musseus and Orpheus^ persuading people and cities that thus atonement may be made for sid| “processes which they call initiations, that free us from the pains of Hades!” Such teaching, which tended to destroy the sense of responsibility in man, became a menace, providing a cheap way of obtaining salvation, only com¬ parable with the “Sale of Indulgences” during the most corrupt period of the Middle Ages. Pausanias writes of the halo of antiquity that surrounded the rites at Eleusis: “The Greeks of an earlier age esteemed the mysteries as much superior to all other religious exercises as they esteemed the gods superior to heroes.” Aristotle declares that the finer few were changed for the rest of their lives by what they saw at Eleusis, and those few were the makers of Athens. He says: 240 THE0S0PHICAL QUARTERLY “The initiated do not learn anything so much as feel certain emotions and are put into a certain frame of mind,” and he comments on the absence of dog¬ matic teaching. It is possible—though this is a conjecture of the present writer, unsupported by historical evidence—that although great numbers of people were admitted to the rites at Eleusis in classical times, perhaps only very few attained to the higher degrees of initiation. There were three known degrees, and at least a year had to elapse between the second degree, of mystes, and the third degree of epoptes , or seer. Possibly these were only preliminary stages, to prepare those who had sufficient intuition to seek for themselves where the true teaching was to be found. “Knowledge exists and is attainable,” and earnest students might be led to undertake the essential discipline and training necessary before they could discover these truths for themselves, in the secret places of the heart, or find them confirmed by those who had both knowledge and experience. The full ceremonial of the Eleusin- ian rites extended over nine days, said to symbolize the fall of the soul through eight spheres (which included seven planetary regions), down to her dwelling on this earth; but the true philosophers realized that a life-time (or, rather, successive incarnations) of purification, aspiration, and contemplation, was but a light price to pay for the immortal glory or real initiation, the “beatific vision” of the true mystics. Plutarch writes of the beauty of life after death in the following passage (which has been condensed): “The soul, at the moment of death, experiences sensation as at initiation into the Greater mysteries,—wanderings in darkness, fear, shuddering, terror. Then it beholds a marvellous light and fair places and sacred words and divine apparitions. Man, made perfect, walks without fear, crowned with a garland, and he walks with holy men.” Diodorus suggests that the mysteries came from Egypt, by way of Crete; and that that which was openly performed in Crete, was revealed only to the initiates at Eleusis. Speaking of the mysteries celebrated at Samothrace (which are referred to in several passages of The Secret Doctrine ,) he says that “those who participate become more religious, more just, and in all ways better.” The celebration of the mysteries at Eleusis continued, without interruption, through Roman times. Cicero declares: “Much that is excellent and divine does Athens seem to me to have produced and added to our life, but nothing better than those mysteries by which we are formed and moulded from a rude and savage life, to humanity; and indeed in the mysteries we perceive the real principles of life, and learn not only to live happily, but also to die with a fairer hope.” The external control of the Eleusinian festival was taken over by the city of Athens in the time of Solon, but the regulation of all details concerned with the ritual and teaching was in the hands of a special tribe of priests, the Eumolpidae. It is worth remembering that at Athens there were no pro¬ fessional priests; any citizen of good repute might be elected by lot to perform, for one year, the priestly functions connected with the city. But at Eleusis the priests were experts, who gave time to study and meditation, and were required to lead holy lives and to remain celibate. They obtained office by right of inheritance in the priestly tribe. There were a number of different officials connected with the mysteries. The hierophant revealed the sacred symbols; the torch-bearer led the procession; the herald made solemn announcement; previous initiates introduced the new candidates. There remains an inscrip¬ tion on a statue of a hierophant named Glaucos, to the effect that “for nine years he revealed to men the radiant ceremonies of the Goddess; in the tenth year he went to the Immortals. It is surely beautiful, that mysterious secret which comes to us from the Blessed; for mortal men, death is not only not an evil, it is a good.” There is an interesting record that Apollonius of Tyana, in the first century A.D., came to Eleusis and desired to be admitted into the mysteries, and that the hierophant refused, on the ground that Apollonius was a magician. Apol¬ lonius conjectured that the refusal was due rather to the fact that the hiero¬ phant was afraid of him, because he knew so much more about the initiatory rites than the priests themselves. The hierophant gave way; but Apollonius would not then accept the privilege, and declared that he would be initiated at some other time, foretelling the name of the priest who would then receive him. This actually took place, four years later, and Apollonius was perhaps given priestly rank. An inscription to confirm this has been found at Eleusis on a statue erected to a hierophant: “Ask not my name, the mystic packet has carried it away to the blue sea.” A later writer added below: “This is the famous Apollonius.” It would seem that the character of the priests and the conduct of the ceremonies at Eleusis were maintained on a high level, nor have any valid accusations been made to the contrary. It is true that some of the Christian writers, in the early centuries, made various allegations which were, however, probably unjustified. They can perhaps be attributed to the fear, on the part of the Christian priests, of too great influence proceeding from the Eleusinian mysteries, which bore, in several respects, such striking resemblance to Christian ceremony. The Neo-Platonists found deep significance in the ritual of the Eleusinian mysteries, interpreting the legend of Demeter in several ways, and on different planes of being. It is perhaps a little confusing that they refer to the Greek, deities Demeter, Persephone, Dionysus, by their Roman appellations Cere Proserpine and Bacchus. There is a valuable article by Thomas Taylor on the subject, published in 1816, 1 which is referred to in The Occult World. Taylor affirms that “the intention of all mystic ceremonies is to conjoin us with the world and the gods,” but he declares that the profound truth as to immor¬ tality, was not given to all candidates for initiation, but merely a preliminary training. He declares that Virgil, in the sixth book of the ASneid, interpreted the external form of the mysteries, but not their recondite meaning. Virgil’s description, none the less, has many points that are significant, and probably 1 The Eleusinian Mysteries, by Thomas Taylor; published in “ The Pamphleteer,” Vol. VIII, 1816. ELEUSIS 242 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY had considerable influence on the thought of a later mystic, Dante, in the Divina Commedia. Eneas has to find his way through a dense wood, which symbolizes the material world, till, under the guidance of the Sibyl, he reaches the mouth of Hell. It is said that the wise men of old “universally considered Hades as commencing in the present life.” The hero encounters various shapes and monsters, but finds his sword of no avail against these ghostly phantoms. At last he meets his father Anchises, who reveals to him the spiritual origin of all Creation, in the grand passage,—“An inner Spirit gives life, and Mind moves the whole mass of matter.” Before he returns to the world above, .Eneas is given further instruction in the mystery teaching concerning Reincarnation and Immortality. Thomas Taylor has made a study of Neo-Platonic commentators, and gives useful quotations on the subject of the mysteries, as, for instance, from Proclus: “Initiation and inspection (vision) are symbols of ineffable silence, and of union with mystical natures, through intelligible visions.” The teaching as to the divine appearances in the mysteries was confirmed by Plotinus. Taylor condemns the arrogance of the critics of his day, who declared that the “illumination” was merely a mechanical contrivance of the priests. He would be even more scornful of modern scholars—the Germans in particular—some of whom, having examined the evidence from every aspect, and being baffled by the secrecy surrounding the teaching, have confidently declared that there really was no secret to discover! The various interpretations of the legend of Demeter suggested by the Neo-Platonists, are rather too elaborate to give in detail; but it is interesting to note that Taylor derives his authority from manuscript writings “in possession of the few.” Perhaps it is with intention that he does not comment on the symbolism which is, possibly, of central importance in the Eleusinian rites,—that of the stalk of wheat, shown to the “enlightened.” The mystery teaching can be traced back to the records of ancient Egypt; its language is to be found in the writings of St. Paul, the apostle to the Greeks; the similarity of its ceremonial with Christian ritual is marked and significant. Those who believe in the fundamental unity of religious teaching will appreci¬ ate Taylor’s concluding statement: “As to the philosophy, by whose as¬ sistance these mysteries are developed, it is coeval with the universe itself: and however its continuity may be broken by opposing systems, it will make its appearance at different periods of time, as long as the sun himself shall continue to illuminate the world.” S. C. A REVERSED TRIANGLE Ms folios.. *> t~” » Wnen ms tmuw* j”* - * away, as the wind carries a boat away to sea. Bhagavad GiTA. .. rpBE soul is in the body". ? h 7?he“mM.1T*5“ I and Plato added, completing t the great philosopher s I soul is to live disembodied. We ^^ tte separation of the soul idea, if we assume that by disem o lmei ^ astral dissociation during life, from its physical vesture by dea ° ^ q{ the sou i, i s the vehicle of passion and i^iorancZ^the elemental was to reveal to the . elemental consciousness. To that en ^ d laws of nature and the psy- which was a commentary u P on . ifkance of that teaching for him natu chical powers latent in man. Th g derstan ding. But growth in under¬ ally depended upon the degree o£ d tance in thought and deed, of the standing was the reward of a comp heavens faU .” Therefore, he was maxim: “Let truth prevail though l the h'eavens J^ - t and to still enjoined not only to exercise his mmd * th ^ reflected in his C onscious- its perturbations, so that when an imag In the last analysis, this ness, it would not be deformed beyond «««* - whole array of his desires mental catharsis involved the realign and transform the passional In the fire of a selfless ^ elements which deflect the ra>. Madame Blavatsky desenbed m a sen It seems that very few succeeded. . many efforts to reestablish tence the fate of the ancient Mysteries4 J ^ hitherto ended m them : “ Every such attempt as theTh . V ^ & ^ set up hard-and- failure, because sooner or later, it . tible de grees that vitality which fast dogmas of its own and so lost by P ^ If th e Theosophical truth alone can impart” (The Key to T have {ailedi it is because it Society has succeeded where o 0 f its members have reason has not degenerated into a sect. transmitted by Madame to believe in the truth of the h y Y members has e ver been able to Blavatsky and others, no memberorchq ^ ^ acceptance of this or of commit the Society as an official u , t J obv i 0 us danger threatens the any other belief. In spite of that no ^ remembered that the continuity of this tradition of t^^ toleran . members to keep free from dogmatism and to grow in 243 244 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY become “aspirants” of the restored Mysteries, such freedom and growth must be regarded as indispensable for the work to be done. Therefore, it is not amiss to reflect a little upon the very real perils which are latent in every dogmatic expression of the mind. The term, dogmatism, has certain connotations which may make us forget its essential meaning. It is usually associated with the pretensions of theo¬ logians, especially of those theologians who have been thoroughly discredited by science and common sense. But it is not confined to theology. There are probably few living men who do not daily make innumerable positive assertions which are incapable of proof. Consider, for instance, the platitudes about democracy and international peace which are the common currency of our present public opinion. The essence of dogmatism seems to be the spirit of active misunderstanding, and this explains why its appearance in the mind is fatal to the appreciation of truth. When the mind conceives an idea imperfectly, its conception tends to crystallize as a dogma. One can think of many reasons for this,—inertia, inadequate mental training, self-satisfaction, and so on. However, there is one cause of active misunderstanding which may be said to include all the others. In every case which can be submitted to self-examination, it appears that we believe what we desire to believe. If we desire truth in itself, we shall believe that this truth exists, but we shall not be unduly impressed by the efforts of our minds to assimilate or to symbolize it. If we desire to justify ourselves, it will not be the truth which concerns us but some mental formula authorizing our desire. Such a formula has all the qualities needed to define a dogma. To be convinced of this, one need only recall the mental processes which are most active when two or more people are engaged in a religious or political argument. What is at first a minor difference of opinion, or only of definition, becomes, through the desire of each speaker to justify himself, a difference of dogma enhancing in each heart the sense of separateness. When the subject of misunderstanding is some phase of the Mystery doctrine, one may believe that the resulting evils are much greater than when two very ordinary minds engage in a battle of notions which are quite devoid of any significance in themselves. It seems that a dynamic truth cannot be dragged down to the plane of elemental desires without suffering a perversion which becomes more or less potent in proportion to the original sublimity of the truth. It is possible to illustrate such a perversion by reference to what appears actually to have happened during the last quarter of the Eighteenth Century, when a great effort is said to have been made to revive a true understanding of the Mystery doctrine among the European nations. It is only too obvious that this effort ended in a veritable orgy of misunderstandings, until at last the spiritual maxims of the Mysteries were reflected upside-down in the minds of those who made use of them. At the same time and according to the degree of their inversion, they assumed a gross and dogmatic colour. Thus one sees, in some old “seals of Solomon”, the lower triangle filled with a murky light and half-materialized into the shape of a devil. Finally, the A REVERSED TRIANGLE 245 -r ed P° Wer , 0f the corru Pted formula blended with other forces to pro¬ duce an external cataclysm, the French Revolution. One original form of the Mystery teaching may be studied in the writings “a true S TheoJ f S * l i nt ' 1 ^ ar ^ ln -. who was - according to Madame Blavatsky, c „ , • ° phlSt ' and who ,s traditionally associated with Mesmer and ^lostrointhe att6mpt t0 6Stablish a “Theosophical Society” during the het stated teh y ' • W T k h3S a PeCUlkr and tra ^ c interest - because Fn l t d r haVe originated the famous triad of the Revolution, “Liberty Equality, Fraternity,” which he called le ternaire sacre. ’ ' ' Even a very cursory examination of his philosophy reveals the contrast of the sacred ternary and tLt of the who adapted it to their own ends. It is the difference between an image or ideal of spiritual evolution and a fatal political dogma. 8 ccordmg to Saint-Martin, liberty, equality and fraternity are inalienable thefact that threat lit H ® f °"° WS Pythag ° ras a "d Plato in his explanation of e fact that the earthly expenence of man is, nevertheless, marked by tvrannv injustice and fratricide. These evils are not represented by him as the effects r:: au r ,T he i oui has brought them up ° n ^ it h as a^d tself to be enslaved by the passions and ignorance of its bodily instrument By virtue of its birthright of liberty it can free itself, if its wiri ieTnZ ed active and turned in its proper direction. rendered r n his book, Erreurs et de la Verite, published in 1775 he discusses at following quotatio " makes ** ae powers, to maintain ffsdfTn acc^lancewith" th^law prtscnbedfo^ft Tnd 7 ing in thTTtruggL^o/to^uffer^defeat^t^s^nl^necessa'iy'Rir a^free S B CCUm t' cease to will the acts which are appropriate j mg t0 why rh degrade and Cnfeeble WS " berty at "dtisTpllI why the human species is less free to-day than it was in the beginning Nevertheless, the chains of a slave prove only that he is no longer aWe to actA according to the full extent of his natural forces; they do not prove that hW was never free. On the contrary, they suggest that he couM m^ freeN T (Vo S 1.“T”i- 2 1) had n0t br ° Ught a C ° nditi0n ° f SCrvitude upo " himself” In a later passage, Saint-Martin reconciles the theory or axiom of the potential equality of all souls with the observed fact that social incHt f have been based upon the «e„w inequalities o( ment recalls the teaching of Mahayana Buddhism in which every soul is held to contain within itself the seed of Bodhisattvaship or enlightenment, “ in 1 Theosophical Glossary, p. 264. * Mrs. Nesta H. Webster: World Revolution, p. 7. 246 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY the natural Order”, writes Saint-Martin, “if each man manifested all his potential excellence, then every man would be a King.” But in fact all men have not evolved their true natures in equal measure. There are souls m various degrees of bondage and there are other souls which are altogether free. If fraternity or brotherhood be the natural relationship of souls, if the in¬ dividual soul be, indeed, an emanation and an undivided part of the Universal Soul, then the unity of spiritual life provides that the strong must serve the weak. This service they perform by acting as governors or directors of the weak who are unable to govern or to direct themselves. This is the philo¬ sophical basis of the “divine right of kings”. “The man who has the courage and the good fortune to preserve himself from the pitfalls of elemental darkness, will have disfigured the ideal of his Principle less than other men who have not made the same efforts. Because he is their superior, because there is between those others and himself a real difference based upon his possession of faculties and powers which they do not equally possess, they will have need of him. . . . Moreover, he who finds himself thus endowed with a temporal empire over others, can be happy only in so far as he stands firm in the virtues which have brought him domin¬ ion” (Vol. II, p. 20, seq.). He makes no distinction between his own interests and those of his subjects. Under the form of an apparently political discussion, Saint-Martin seems to make explicit certain phases of the ancient teaching concerning the nature and destiny of the soul. He admits that few historical rulers have manifested to any degree the assemblage of high qualities with which he endows the “real Sovereign”. There are many who are evil shepherds of the people or who rule in name only, but the viciousness or anarchy of so many actual govern¬ ments is not the product of hazard or of diabolical ingenuity. It is the fatal consequence of the blindness and lack of aspiration of the fallen race of men, who have the rulers whom they desire and deserve. Nevertheless, mankind has never been deprived of the inner support of its true rulers. “I beg you to believe that real Sovereigns are not imaginary beings, that such beings have always existed and always will exist, because such is the nature of the Order of the Universe.” These real Sovereigns, whom we may identify with the Masters of Wisdom, are ready to serve us if we yield them our loyalty and willing obedience. Their supreme service consists in aiding us to become ultimately their equals in power and understanding, through the communication to us of all their privileges and authority. “They signify that which every man can and ought to become, even in the midst of the impure realm which he inhabits to-day.” These quotations sufficiently illustrate the nobility of Saint-Martin’s thought, and its essential identity with the ideas which were re-bom with the Theosophical Movement of the Nineteenth Century. The “sacred ternary” of liberty, equality and fraternity seems to have been his formula for the universal theosophical ideals of liberation and brotherhood, these ideals being based upon the affirmation of the oneness of all souls with the A REVERSED TRIANGLE 247 Oversoul. Thus the saered ternary m^be th* being within the nature o realize that form will be the guiding manifestation of the Logos, e degree of evolution. In man, that motive of every creature according must co6pe rate with Nature, in rr« c ri“ »«, s “ h ' o6per! ‘ ti<>n imp " es tury France did not interpret the sacred. tern ry misund erstood verted it into a dogmatic affirmat™, of ^ that liberty . or, rather, disregarded the central ld - fest as political, social and economic equality and fraternity cannot become of the se lf- C onsciousness realities until they have been evo . t once t0 the actual political of the soul. They demanded their ^ ^ ^ developme nt or and social state of mankind, wi • ^ Qther words> they appropriated in any way concerning^sev ng and claimed them as the natural the rights which belong to the s Thefe was _ in fac t, nothing unique prerogatives of the psychic personal >’• Th of human history. i-ar- msm - - - ~ “ m= modem democratic . ddition t0 its reversal of aspect it is a very model, we shall notice a in looking at some object reflected m a £ST«iS. « grotesquely .nagged, while other. obligation to respect t e rig , 0 f one’s neighbours who possessed to justify the expropriation of the g ^ ^ the elemental world as class more than oneself. Fraternity a num ber of men share the consciousness. It was calculated th ^ q£ th e desire desire to possess their neighbours g - It ; s qu ite useless to «i-P-ed i« they 0f^S ~«on, q i» the original attempt to recognize “ detad tb p Sain t-Martin! for they have practically attributes of the sacred ternary of S one most important reached the ^S S hardly app-' at all » the Revolu.mnar^ aspect of the Martmst doctnne ha y TO n terms of the evolut^i inversion of it. Saint-Mar m 1 , he r61e of the rea l Sovereigns or “Adept of consciousness, and had emp a^^ ^ susta iners of the weak and ignorant. Kincs” of mankind as the w ^ and equality here and now were The Revolutionists who wan olerate the notion that there might exist not evolutionists, and they co^d not tol^th, ^ The sus . _ 248 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY Doubtless, many of the Revolutionists—homicidal maniacs, like Marat, and amateurs of political power, like Danton—were intellectually detached from the dogmas of the new democracy which they regarded as mere formulae wherewith they might cloak their ruling passions. But it may be taken as a fact that without these dogmas to support it the Revolution could never have taken its actual course. They were already present in the consciousness of the nation as dynamic centres of active misunderstanding before the political upheavals began. It is significant that the Abb6 Siey&s could assert without challenge before the Convention that the Rights of Man were “so clearly known and so self-evident that their extreme simplicity is without doubt the only reason why anyone ever imagined that the truth could be otherwise”. There is historical authority for the view that the dogmas of the Revolution were primarily the product of an intense Masonic activity during the last quarter of the Eighteenth Century, and that the debasement and failure of the Masonic lodges preceded the convulsions of the First Republic. When the lodges were brought into contact with the Mystery doctrine through the work of Saint- Martin, Cagliostro and others, the response, indeed, was great, but the wrong elements responded. In a recent article, 3 M. Louis Rougier seems to touch the most active cause of that wrong response. He hints that there are some people who cannot enjoy the opera because they are in the family circle, while others—no better than they, of course, only richer—have seats in the orchestra. Such persons as these are easy converts to the cult of equality. It is an allegory illustrating the hatching of a dogma. Perhaps, the dogmas of the Eighteenth Century were the fruit of similar meditations dictated by similar envies and resent¬ ments. Rougier imagines Rousseau and his followers saying, in some moment of lucidity, exactly what they meant 1 We want to be free, but we are not as free as we want to be. To legitimize our desire, we decree a priori that we have a right to liberty, and that any state refusing our demand is in the wrong.” It would seem that the student of Theosophy can learn much for his own guidance from reflection upon the causes of the failure of past efforts to pre¬ serve or to revive the Mystery teaching in the world. The failure of the Eighteenth Century, of which a tentative and fragmentary sketch has been attempted, is, perhaps, the easiest to study because the data are, in general, more available, and because certain reliable information has been published concerning some of the individuals who were then active in France as agents of the Lodge. It has been suggested that their labours were frustrated by the active misunderstandings of those who received their teaching, and that these mis¬ understandings resulted in the conversion of a doctrine, intended to move the soul, into a system of dogmas which expressed and “sanctified” the passions of the elemental man. In this way the theosophy of Saint-Martin and his ‘ MerCUr ‘ de FranC ‘‘ September '• IP28 > " De la Mystique diSmocratique." by Louis Rougier. associates passed from mind to mind until at last it appeared in the outer “““ a m ° tlVe r f Sedlt '° n and self - assert '°n. as a generator of acts which doctrine 6 r6V6rSe ^ intended by the authors of the original All this may seem remote to the contemporary student who has no intention of joining the Bolshevilci. Nevertheless, the history of the Eighteenth Cen- Sdi T 168 - 16 P° tencies which are contained in any active misunder- ng of a spiritual truth. If misconceptions be essentially the productions of wrong desire, they are ipso facto the moulds of wrong actions. The more noble the truth which is travestied, the more destructive will be the ignoble act which ultimately gives physical form to the travesty. The student will recall the statement that the Mystery teachings are con¬ cerned with universal principles and that no intellectual view of them in ur present condition of consciousness, can possibly be other than partial and imperfect. The value of an intellectual view is that it may fire our imagi¬ nation with some intuition of a cosmic purpose in which we are privileged pretend that” 6 ' ™ effectivel y Participate in it, if we seriously pretend that any mental form by which we symbolize our intuition can be the image of all the truth that there is in the Universe. As so often one must resort to a paradox. "One thing I know that I 5 S T % ’f" 5 rebukin ‘ ! — »P~*ed youth. To £'«."t r „Xr nndem “ d '" E ' iS 10 *•- “ T '»» “”" d m “‘ '* c,llti " ted - our efforts to our- mnrf ! ! If lf T d ° n0t P ractise constant discernment between the Snth C? t lmm ®! ementS ° f desire ‘ The intelligentsia of the Eight¬ eenth Century were intellectually arrogant, but their arrogance was the aTbSons XPreSS1 ° n ° f 3 h ° St ° £ PaSSi ° nS ’ enViCS ' i ea > ou sies. vanities, and A philosopher has said that the Good is the true object of every desire but that in their ignorance men confuse reality with some warped reflection of it n the mind. The essence of a desire is real and its true objectTreal but, between them, the imagination, misguided by egotism or passion inserts a false object, a counterfeit of reality. In order to fortify the illusion that the counterfeit is the real, we make a dogma and assert that it must be so. S. L WHY I REJOINED THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY M ANY members of the T. S. have told us in the Theosophical Quar¬ terly why they joined the Society. It is interesting to students of Theosophy to note the various circumstances which have influenced their comrades of quite different religious beliefs and ideas to take so impor¬ tant a step. I happen to be one who joined and left the Society, but who became sub¬ sequently thoroughly convinced that the only consistent course was to seek for re-admission. Since this return no misgivings have arisen as to the value of that great opportunity, which every member enjoys, of learning the real meaning of theosophical life and work. It may be of interest to record some of the considerations which led me to retrace my steps, and link my life again with those who are associated in the effort to form a nucleus of Universal Brotherhood, without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or colour. A Catholic by birth, much of my thought had been given to the ideas of death, judgment, hell, and heaven; to the doctrine of the vicarious atone¬ ment; to the efficacy of prayer; the virtue of the sacraments and the necessity of obedience to authority. Authority was really the axis upon which these values turned, for they derived their weight from teachers who inculcated them before the mind was capable of estimating their merits or determining their validity. A child born of Catholic parents is instructed, as a rule, in the catechism at a very early age, and the preconceived notions of his parents are sedulously packed into his unfolding intelligence. Later on, he is sent to a Catholic school, where the same doctrines are further insisted on in the name of author¬ ity delegated by Jesus Christ. He is taught that the goal is the saving of his own soul, so that a sublimated form of self-preservation becomes the mo¬ tive power of his spiritual battery. His basic presuppositions are: (i) That Jesus Christ is God and Man in one Person. (2) That Jesus Christ founded an exoteric Church identical with the institution of the Papacy. Anybody subscribing to these propositions is said to be logically committed to Catholicism. These constitute the Rock on which the Church is founded, but, as a writer has wittily said, the Rock itself is in the air. The religion of Catholic authority held me with a tight rein until my thirty- fifth year. About that time I was much attracted by Florence Marryatt’s book, There is no Death , in which the main ideas of modem Spiritualism are graphically expounded. Spiritualism paved the way to acquaintance with a number of mediums—to “materialization” stances—clairvoyant delineations 250 WHY I REJOINED THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 251 and puzzling psychic phenomena. Spirit Teachings , by the late Stainton Moses, and similar books, gave the first shake to my faith in religious authority. But when the fascination of spiritualistic wonders had worn off, a disillusion set in. The vast majority of the alleged communications from the “other side” were too undignified to be ascribed to the human entities we had known and loved before death took them out of sight. Then the wearying repetition of tests had very little point when once the fact of extra-mundane communica¬ tion had been established. Nor was I much impressed by either the intellec¬ tual or the moral status of the leading exponents of Spiritualism, who had apparently no safe guidance to offer in the most vital and sacred requirements of the human soul. Turning to the lives of the great Catholic saints and mystics, I frequently found the soundest advice and the most uplifting example in the record of their luminous experiences. Anybody who compares the wonders of grace which illumined their ways with the paltry tricks and morbid vulgarities of Spiritualism, cannot but feel that the saints were genuine disciples in the spiritual life. A note of interrogation, however, had forced its way into nearly every page of my book of faith. The hidden assumptions of dogmatic teachers and the mind-fashioning element in religious concepts, were subjected to a criticism which led me further away from the religion of my childhood. The saints seemed right, yet the Church seemed wrong! Where was the master-hand which would conduct the soul to the light and freedom of the one, and out of the obscurantism and intransigeance of the other? It was while persistently searching for guidance in this quandary that I came across some members of the Theosophical Society. The numerous difficulties I put to them were answered in a way which showed a living Power was at work, pointing to some Truth towards which all minor verities gravi¬ tated—to some Reality in which all reflections were resolved back into their original Light. An eager study of the Theosophical Quarterly followed, and after attending every available meeting for a few months, I applied for admission into the Society. By this time I was pretty well outside the fold, as Roman Catholics understand it. There was a flow of life in the T. s! comparable to the sacramental influx, but without any of those dogmatic limits and obstructions which the Roman hierarchy imposes. This change, however, was not achieved without some conscious re-actions^fc All outward religious expression had been dropped, and the loss of'the haunt-^ ing liturgy and impressive ritual of the Church was keenly felt. This may have accounted for a lively interest in a neo-Platonic group devoted to the Greek wisdom. It had a ritual all its own, and a brotherhood which contrived to bring into harmonious concourse, for a time, persons of many social grades and attainments, under an inspiring enthusiasm for spiritual achievement. One of the members of this group introduced me to a Kabalistic Order in which a still more solemn ritual was progressively unfolded. Somewhat to my sur¬ prise, I discovered that several Roman Catholics held office in this Kabalistic Circle, and it was eventually through an influence they brought to bear that 252 theosophical quarterly I was persuaded to return to the Roman Catholic communion. ^ hen it became a question of receiving the sacraments some account of my lapse from the faith became necessary, and my theosophical leanings were disclosed. The good Father who heard my confession, acting under his Archbishop’s special instructions, made my resignation from the T. S. a condition of his priestly absolution. I was reluctant to take this step, but felt that, while resigning outwardly from the Society, no authority could interfere with my deep appreciation of the theosophical writers in the Quarterly. As M. Loisy says: “You cannot kill ideas with a big stick.” Moreover, there was probably some confusion in the Archbishop’s mind, owing to Theosophy in England being so generally identified with Mrs. Besant s activities, so that a condemnation perhaps was touching me which should have been reserved for others. Once again, then, I was cradled in the Catholic Church, but gazing this time with interest through the network of the cradle, at other great religions and philosophies now a little better known to me than before. It seemed impossible to silence the thousand voices of enquiry which kept up a forum in my thoughts, even under the roof of orthodoxy. Echoes of the philosophy of freedom followed me everywhere, while critical intuitions startled me with their invading light. The Spirit of Modernism danced in and out of my soul leaving me sometimes puzzled and wondering, sometimes anxious and apprehensive. Meanwhile, I had kept up a little correspondence with some of my old comrades in the T. S. Occasionally we crossed swords on some doctrinal question; but behind the points I tried to emphasize there was a desire to reconcile Catholic theology with Eastern mysticism. It was clear that the T. S. as such, being entirely free from any doctrines as obligatory upon its members, did not come into conflict with the adherents of any religion. After all, could there exist any RELIGIOUS body which objected to the formation of a spiritual nucleus of humanity? Yet there was a certain challenge in the fact that the Church put forward her dogmas and regulations in the name of authority from the outside. The T. S. sounded rather a clarion call to the slumbering spirit within man. The Church said “Obey”; the T. S. said “Examine”. The Church offered a crutch; the T. S. said “Walk”! Here seemed the parting of the ways between the religion of authority and the science of the spirit. But the invitation of the T. S. is not to an empty platform, as Professor Mitchell pointed out in his 1927 Convention address. Truth seekers are not merely urged to a terminus a quo , such as the religious aspect of Modernism has initiated. On the contrary, it is clear that a very definite and profound philosophy is put forward for examination, and that most students of long standing in the T. S. accept the principles of this philosophy as outlined in Esoteric Buddhism and more fully expounded in The Secret Doctrine. Spiritual monism being at the base of the esoteric philosophy, presents at once a chal¬ lenge to the dualistic foundation of Catholic doctrine. Catholicism, though claiming Jesus as its founder, has retained a Jewish conception of God which he repeatedly discountenanced. In The Secret Doctrine we are reminded that I 1 / 4 WHY I REJOINED THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 253 Fichte reveres Jesus as the great Teacher who inculcated the Unity of the Spirit of man with the God Spirit or Universal Principle. The breach widens as the sequences of this fundamental divergence develop. Like contortions produced by some central shock, out of the dualistic foundation has come the whole Catholic Christology—the divorce between religion and science—the smothering of the “divine idea” by the institution—and the development of explicit teaching from an alleged depositum fidei whose original terms have remained in abscondito. There are many members of the T. S. who are able to reconcile adhesion to the Christian faith with theosophical ideals—why not indeed? But surely it is impossible to accept the fundamental formulae of The Secret Doctrine , without putting oneself outside the pale of institutional Catholicism. Faced with this dilemma, I sought for some solution in the pages of writers such as Coventry Patmore, Miss Maud Petre, Fr. George Tyrrell, and others, who looked to the spirit rather than the letter of religion; but my study of their views landed me on a negative path, aside from all the roads that led to any positive criterion. It was then that a friend obtained for me an invi¬ tation to attend a group engaged in learning the art of “harmonious develop¬ ment” under the guidance of Mr. Ouspensky. He set us working along the line of introspection; of non-mechanical thought and action, i.e. non-identi¬ fication with our own mental and emotional states. Behind Mr. Ouspensky, there was an establishment at Fontainebleau where an extraordinary regime was carried out under the leadership of Mr. Gurjieff, but circumstances pre¬ vented me from following up these studies. One day, in reply to my question, Mr. Ouspensky referred to the Eucharist in connection with a certain original provision in the Mysteries, and his remarks were the occasion of another blow to my Catholicism. Scarcely knowing whither to turn for sound counsel and spiritual lucidity in this melange confus de bien et de mol , I felt impelled to look once more to the T. S. for light. When I reconsidered the answers it gave to the problems of human existence; the foundation of all religious doctrines it disclosed; its absolute freedom from dogmatic tyranny; the results it had produced in the characters of its living exponents; its seen and unseen resources in the work of spiritually educating the devotees of all churches and the students of all philosophies,—I realized that no other step was possible for me than to apply once more for admission. I saw the T. S. as a prismatic organism inform^® and governed by a spiritual Unity of Divine Light. I assured myself that not even the meanest soul could become linked with so great an instrument, without sharing in that spiritual uplift of which humanity is in so great need to-day. It then became my privilege to set to work with others like-minded, and to help to win this blessing for others; to become the means, if possible, of putting others on the track of those mighty Truths which have come down to us under the name of The Wisdom Religion or THEOSOPHIA. X. R. CHHANDOGYA UPANISHAD PART II, SECTIONS 1-24 CORRESPONDENCE AND EMANATION I N the second Section of this great Upanishad, Instruction for Disciples is carried a step farther. The principle of Emanation and the great law of Correspondence are illustrated by a series of natural symbols, all of them familiar even to the youngest student of the sacred Wisdom. They are told, first, what it is that emanates, revealing the manifested worlds from the unmanifested Logos. And the triune being of the Logos is once more made clearer, this time by a play of words, based on several meanings of the word Sama, besides its primary meaning, as the system of magical intoning which is the heart of the Sama Veda. The three meanings of Sama are Abundance, Grace, Goodness. They correspond to the True, the Beautiful, the Good of Plato’s sacred triad, or to Sat, Chit, Ananda, Being, Consciousness, Bliss, of the Vedanta of Shankaracharya. The hidden Logos becomes manifest through the mighty music of the Word, the music of the spheres, Still quiring to the young eyed Cherubim, and this magical music emanates the worlds. The series of emanations, earlier illustrated by groups of three, is now pictured by a series of five, beginning with the Earth; that is, beginning from below and ascending; then comes the return, the descent from above, once again in a series of five degrees: Earth, Fire, Mid-space, Sun, Aether; Aether, Sun, Mid-space, Fire, Earth. For him the Regions build, both the Powers going up¬ ward and the Powers returning, who rightly understands this. This takes the disciple upward from the stage where he must begin his course, the stage of natural life on earth, through the fire of purification to the mid-space of the first inner world, through this to the sun, here, as always, symbolizing the Logos, and thence to the Aether, which represents the Eternal, Parabrahm, the ultimate goal of the eternities. The progression of cosmic emanation is in the reverse direction: from the Eternal, the Logos comes into manifesta¬ tion, from the Logos comes the manifestation of space, from this again the fire of manifested life, and, finally, the earth, representing completely developed organic life. Here, the progression is given in both directions. Thereafter, the disciple is left to work it out for himself, only one direction being given. Through the whole runs an inner meaning. Thus, the Waters mean, as always, the cosmic deep, the waters of space. In the Waters he goes not astray, of the Waters he is lord, who rightly understands this. He wins a home in the air, and afterwards in the ether, who knows this. 254 CHHANDOGYA UPANISHAD 255 The same inner meaning is present in the enumeration of the Animals. The word aja means “goat”; it is also a-ja, “unborn”, the symbol of the Logos. The sheep, the celestial flock, are a familiar symbol in the West. The cow has long been a symbol of the Logos in India, as the giver of susten¬ ance. Similarly, the horse symbolizes the power of the Logos, with its swift extension through the worlds of space, as the manifested worlds. Bnhad Aranyaka Upanishad opens with the symbol of the sacrificial horse, the Logos sacrificially offered in the manifestation of the worlds. Then the fivefold symbol is expanded to seven, the names of the successive parts or stages of the Sama chant being used to illustrate it. Once more, the universe is the Divine Song, rising from the first tone, at cosmic dawn, to the loud chant of fully manifested day, and sinking again to the closing tone in the evening twilight of cosmic day. The symbolism of the Sun as the Logos is then more fully developed. The sevenfold Logos, the sevenfold Host whose united consciousness and powers constitute the consciousness and power of the Logos, are symbolized by the seven stages of the day from morning to evening twilight. And seven classes of manifested lives are in like manner symbolized by animals, men, birds, devas and so on. This is followed by an exercise in arithmetic, based upon the seven stages of emanation, each threefold, with the One, unchanging Being, the whole numbering twenty-two. The divisions which follow, dealing with a series of forms of Sama chants, had a much richer and deeper significance for the young disciples of those ancient days, than they can have for us, since they were familiar with these magical songs. We may illustrate one of them: the Gayatrl is the great verse from the Rig Veda, attributed to the Rajput sage Vishvamitra: Let us meditate on the excellent radiance Of that Divine Sun! May He guide our souls forward! Each division takes a symbol which illustrates a stage of the great cosmic process. Each division speaks of the victorious might of him who, attaining, becomes Master of these cosmic powers. Then, after a passage which appears to give a clue to the magical correlations of the tones, comes an outline of the life of the disciple, beginning with sacrifii e, study, generous self-giving, leading onward through fervour of meditation and will in the “family” of his Master, to the great victory. The three periods of the day, beginning with early morning, symbolize the three great stages: disciple, adept, Master. Advancing, he invokes each divine Power: “Open thou the door of the realm! Thrust back the bar!” The symbol is universal. To the disciple, it is said: You must be ready to lift the bar of the Golden Gate.” Through the ages, the Master says, “I am the door.” 256 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY FROM DISCIPLE TO MASTER Om! Reverence of the Sama in totality ( samasta ) is good, in truth. For what is good, that, in truth, they name Sama (abundance). What is not good, they call not-Sama (lack). So likewise they say: With Sama (graciousness) he came to him; the meaning is, With good will he came to him. Or they say, With not-Sama he came to him; that is, Without graciousness he came to him. So likewise they say: Verily, we have Sama (that which is good), if it be good; the meaning is, This is good. Or they say, We have not-Sama, if it be not good; the meaning is, This is not good. Among the Regions, let him reverence the Sama as having five forms: Earth is the First Tone. Fire is the Opening Praise. Mid-space is the Loud Chant. Sun is the Response. Aether is the Closing Tone. Thus among the Powers going upward. And so among the Powers returning: Aether is the First Tone. Sun is the Opening Praise. Mid-space is the Loud Chant. Fire is the Response. Earth is the Closing Tone. For him the Regions build, both the Powers going upward and the Powers returning, who, thus knowing this, among the Regions reverences the Sama as having five forms. In the Rain, let him reverence the Sama as having five forms: Rising wind is the First Tone. Cloud forming is the Opening Praise. Rain falling is the Loud Chant. Lightning with Thunder is the Response. Clearing after Rain is the Closing Tone. For him comes Rain, he causes Rain, who, thus knowing this, reverences the Sama as having five forms in the Rain. In all Waters, let him reverence the Sama as having five forms: Cloud condensing is the First Tone. Rain descending is the Opening Praise. Waters rolling eastward are the Loud Chant. Waters rolling westward are the Response. Ocean is the Closing Tone. In the Waters he goes not astray, of the Waters he is lord, who, thus knowing this, reverences the Sama as having five forms in the Waters. CHHANDOGYA UPANISHAD 257 In the Seasons of the year, let him reverence the Sama as having five forms: Springtime is the First Tone. Hot season is the Opening Praise. Rains are the Loud Chant. Autumn is the Response. Winter is the Closing Tone. For him the Seasons build, of the Seasons he is lord, who, thus knowing this, reverences the Sama as having five forms in the Seasons. In Animals, let him reverence the Sama as having five forms: Goats ( aja ) are the First Tone. Sheep are the Opening Praise. Cows are the Loud Chant. Horses are the Response. Man is the Closing Tone. For him Animals are multiplied, of Animals he is lord, who, thus knowing this, reverences the Sama as having five forms in Animals. In the Life-powers, let him reverence the Sama as having five forms, most excellent: Life-breath is the First Tone. Voice is the Opening Praise. Seeing is the Loud Chant. Hearing is the Response. Mind ( manas) is the Closing Tone. Most excellent, verily, are these. His is the most excellent, most excellent worlds he wins, who, thus knowing this, reverences the Sama as having five forms in the Life-breaths. And so concerning seven forms. Let him reverence the Sama as having seven forms in Voice: Of Voice, whatever is hum , is the First Tone ( hin-kara ). ^ Whatever is pra , is the Opening Praise ( pra-stava ). Whatever is d, is the Beginning (< d-di ). Whatever is ud t is the Loud Chant ( ud-githa ). Whatever is prati, is the Response (prati-hdra). Whatever is upa } is the Diminution ( upa-drava ). Whatever is ni, is the Closing Tone ( ni-dhana ). For him Voice milks milk, which is the milk of Voice, of food he is lord, an eater of food is he, who, thus knowing this, reverences the Sama as having seven forms in Voice. And so, of a truth, let him reverence yonder Sun as the Sama having seven forms. Because it is the same for all, it is the Sama. Toward me, toward me, it shines, they all say; because of this sameness it is the Sama. Let him know that all beings here are correlated with the Sun. 258 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY The time before sunrise is the First Tone. Animals are correlated with this, therefore they sound the First Tone; for they are partakers in the First Tone of this Sama. And so sunrise is the Opening Praise. Men are correlated with this, there¬ fore they are lovers of praise, lovers of laudation; for they are partakers in the Opening Praise of this Sama. And so the time of the early gathering of kine is the Beginning. The birds of the air are correlated with this, therefore they fly hither and thither bearing themselves upward in mid-air without support; for they are partakers in the Beginning of this Sama. And so when it is exactly mid-day, this is the Loud Chant. The Bright Powers are correlated with this, therefore they are best of the offspring of the Lord of Beings; for they are partakers in the Loud Chant of this Sama. And so when it is past mid-day in the early afternoon, this is the Response. Children unborn are correlated with this, therefore they are upborne, they descend not; for they are partakers in the Response of this Sama. And so when the afternoon is past, before sunset, this is the Diminution. The Forest Lives are correlated with this; therefore, seeing a man, they make themselves small in a hiding-place, a den; for they are partakers in the Diminution of this Sama. And so when the Sun has just set, this is the Closing Tone. The Fathers are correlated with this, therefore they make offerings to the Fathers- for they are partakers in the Closing Tone of this Sama. Thus, of a truth, he reverences yonder Sun as the Sama having seven forms. And so let him reverence the Sama having seven forms, self-measured passing beyond Death. The First Tone ( hin-kara ) measures three syllable S : the Opening Praise ( pra-stava ) measures three syllables. This is the same measure. The Beginning (a-di) measures two syllables; the Response ( prati-hara) measures four syllables. Moving one from this to that, makes the same measure. , Lo “ d Chant ( ud -Z ltha ) measures three syllables; the Diminution measur es four syllables. Three and three are the same, with one syllable remaining. Measuring three syllables, it is the same. The Closing Tone (ni-dhana) measures three syllables; this is the same T t Se ' Venly ’ taken together measure two and twenty syllables With one and twenty he gains the Sun, for yonder Sun is one and twentieth rorn ere. rough the two and twentieth he wins the realm beyond the Sun. This is Rest, for this is free from sorrow. He gams of a truth, the victory of the Sun, yea, his victory is beyond the victory of the Sun, who, thus knowing this, reverences the Sama haW seven forms, self-measured, passing beyond Death,-reverencesT Sam^ Mind is the First Tone. Voice is the Opening Praise. CHHANDOGYA UPANISHAD 259 Seeing is the Loud Chant. Hearing is the Response. Life-breath is the Closing Tone. This is the Sama of the Gayatrl, woven on the Life-breaths. He who thus knows this Sama of the Gayatrl woven on the Life-breaths, is a lord of the Life-breaths, he fills his full span, he lives with power, he is rich in offspring and cattle, great in fame. Great in mind should he be: this is his VOW. He whirls the fire-stick; this is the First Tone. Smoke is generated; this is the Opening Praise. Flames arise; this is the Loud Chant. Red embers are formed; this is the Response. It sinks to quiescence; this is the Closing Tone. It reaches complete quiescence; this is the Closing Tone. This is the Rathantara Sama, woven upon Fire. He who thus knows this Rathantara Sama woven upon Fire, is a lord of Divine Fire, he is an eater of food, he fills his full span, he lives with power, he is rich in offspring and cattle, great in fame. He should not sip water and spurt it upon the fire: this is his vow. Sunrise is the First Tone. The risen Sun is the Opening Praise. High noon is the Loud Chant. Afternoon is the Response. Sunset is the Closing Tone. This is the Brihat Sama, woven upon the Sun. He who thus knows this Brihat Sama woven upon the Sun, is a lord of Radiance, he is an eater of food, he fills his full span, he lives with power, he is rich in offspring and cattle, great in fame. He should not blame burning heat: this is his vow. Vapours float together; this is the First Tone. The rain cloud is bom; this is the Opening Praise. Rain descends; this is the Loud Chant. It lightens, it thunders; this is the Response. The sky clears; this is the Closing Tone. This is the Vai-rupa Sama woven upon the Rain. He who thus knows this Vai-rupa (variformed) Sama woven upon the Rain^ gathers cattle of various form, of fair form, he fills his full span, he lives witlj power, he is rich in offspring and cattle, great in fame. He should not blame falling rain: this is his vow. Springtime is the First Tone. Hot season is the Opening Praise. 260 theosophical quarterly Rains are the Loud Chant. Autumn is the Response. Winter is the Closing Tone. _ e „_ This is the Vai-raja Sama woven upon the ‘ n the Seasons. He who thus knows this Vai-raja (radiating) Radiance , he fills he radiates through offspring and catt: e, r 1 ca ttle, great in his full span, he lives with power, he is rich in offspring a fame. Let him not blame the Seasons: this is his vow. Earth is the First Tone. Mid-space is the Opening Praise. Aether is the Loud Chant. Space-directions are the Response. Th^.Je'pS« ofttasUvaH S.ma woven upon the world-reatan dSS world-realms: this is his vow. Goats are the First Tone. Sheep are the Opening Praise. Cows are the Loud Chant. Horses are the Response. Man is the Closing Tone. These are the parts of the Revati Sama woven upon Animals. He who thus knows these parts of the Revati Sama woven upon Animals, he is lord of Animals, he fills his span, he lives with power, he is rich m offspring and cattle, great in fame. Let him not blame Animals: this is his vow. Hair is the First Tone. Skin is the Opening Praise. Muscle is the Loud Chant. Bone is the Response. Marrow is the Closing Tone. This is the Yajnayajnlya Sama woven upon the parts of the body. He who thus knows this Yajnayajnlya Sama woven upon the parts of the body he is lord of the parts, not through any part does he fall short, he fills his span, he lives with power, he is rich in offspring and cattle, great m fame Through the year he should not eat the marrow: this is his vow. He should not eat the marrow, verily. Fire is the First Tone. Wind is the Opening Praise. Sun is the Loud Chant. CHHANDOGYA UPANISHAD 261 Star-spaces are the Response. Moon is the Closing Tone. This is the Rajana Sama woven upon the Divine Potencies. He who thus knows this Rajana Sama woven upon the Divine Potencies, successively advances to oneness of realm, oneness of power, oneness of being with the Divinities, he fills his span, he lives with power, he is rich in offspring and cattle, great in fame. He should not blame knowers of the Eternal: this is his vow. The threefold Vedic wisdom is the First Tone. These three realms are the Opening Praise. Fire-lord, Wind-lord, Sun, this is the Loud Chant. Star-spaces, winged birds, sun-rays, this is the Response. Serpents, seraphs, the Fathers, this is the Closing Tone. This is the Sama woven upon the All. He who thus knows this Sama woven upon the All, he is one with the All. Therefore, there is this verse: Whatsoever things have five forms, in threes each, than them naught else is greater, higher. Who knows this, knows the All. All world-spaces carry the offering to him. Let him pay reverence, saying: I am the All: this is his vow. This is his vow. I choose the loud-toned Sama like the voice of kine. This is the Loud Chant of the Fire-lord. The undefined tone is of the Lord of beings. The defined tone is of the Lunar lord. The soft and smooth tone is of the Wind- lord. The smooth and powerful tone is of Indra. The tone like the curlew’s call is of the Great Preceptor. The descending tone is of the Water-lord. Let him make use of all these, yet let him set aside that of the Water-lord. Let me sing immortality for the Bright Powers (thus let him sing): oblation for the Fathers; fair hope for the sons of man; grass and water for kine; the heavenly world for the Sacrificer; food for myself, let me sing. Meditating these things in his heart, let him sing this praise unperturbed. All vowels are selves of Indra. All breathings are selves of the Lord of beings. All contacts (consonants) are selves of the Lord of death. If one reproach him concerning vowels, he should say: I have taken refuge with Indra, Lord of power; he will answer thee! And so, if one reproach him concerning breathings, he should say: I hav taken refuge with the Lord of beings; he will pulverize thee! And so, if one reproach him concerning contacts, he should say: I have taken refuge with the Lord of death; he will consume thee! All vowels are to be voiced with full sound, with power, saying: In Indra, Lord of power, let me give power! All breathings are to be voiced distinctly, not suppressed, open, saying: To the Lord of beings let me give myself over! All contacts are to be voiced clearly, unblurred, saying: From the Lord of death let me withdraw myself! 262 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY There are three branches of the law of righteousness: Sacrifice, study, giving, this is the first. Fervour, verily,—this is the second. Service of the Eternal, dwelling in the family of a Master,—this is the third, entering and establishing himself perfectly in the family of a Master. All these lead to holy realms. He who stands firm in the Eternal goes to immortality. The Lord of beings brooded with fervour upon the realms of life. From them, brooded upon with fervour, the threefold Wisdom emanated. On this Wisdom He brooded with fervour. From it, brooded upon with fervour, these imperishable syllables emanated: Earth, Mid-world, Heaven. Upon these He brooded with fervour. From them, brooded upon with fervour, the sound Om emanated. Therefore, like as by the leaf-stalk all the leaflets are threaded together, so by the sound Om all Voice is threaded together. The sound Om, verily, is this All. The sound Om, verily, is this All. Those who possess the Word of the Eternal declare that to the Powers of life belongs the morning sacrifice; to the Powers of force belongs the mid¬ day sacrifice; to the Sun-powers, the All-powers, belongs the third sacrifice. Where, then, is the world of the sacrificer? If he know not this, how may he do it? So let him who knows do it. Before beginning the early morning recitation, let him seat himself behind the household fire, facing the North, and intone the Sama to the Powers of life : Open thou the door of the realm! Let us behold thee for sovereignty! So he makes the offering, saying: Obeisance to the Fire-lord, earth- mdwelhng, realm-indwelling! Discover the realm for me offering sacrifice' This is the realm of the sacrificer! I shall enter! I, the sacrificer, when my span is fulfilled. Adoration! Thrust aside the bar! Having said this, he rises. To him the Powers of life grant the morning libation. Before beginning the mid-day recitation, let him seat himself behind the altar-fire, facing the North, and intone the Sama to the Powers of force Open thou the door of the realm! Let us behold thee for wide sovereignty! So he makes the offering, saying: Obeisance to the Wind-lord, mid¬ world-indwelling, realm-indwelling! Discover the realm for me offering sacrifice. This is the realm of the sacrificer! I shall enter! I, the sacrificer when my span is fulfilled. Adoration! Thrust aside the bar! Having said this, he rises. To him the Powers of force grant the mid-day libation. Before beginning the third recitation, let him seat himself behind the fire of oblation, facing the North, and intone the Sama to the Sun-powers, the All-powers: • ^ ’ Open thou the door of the realm! Let us behold thee for sovereignty of the Self! CHHANDOGYA UPANISHAD 263 Thus for the Sun-powers. So for the All-powers: Open thou the door of the realm! Let us behold thee for final sovereignty! So he makes the offering, saying: Obeisance to the Sun-powers, to the All-powers, Heaven-indwelling, realm-indwelling! Discover the realm for me offering sacrifice! This is the realm of the sacrificer! I shall enter! I, the sacrificer, when my span is fulfilled. Adoration! The bar is thrust aside! Having said this, he rises. To him the Sun-powers, the All-powers, grant the third libation. He, verily, knows the full measure of the sacrifice, who knows thus, who knows thus. C. J. It is submission to the will of God which sets all the value upon our sacrifices; which gives merit to our sufferings; which sanctifies our joys; which takes the bitterness out of our afflictions , and the poison out of our prosperity; which sta¬ bilizes our irresoluteness; which calms our fears; which upholds our courage; which regulates our hopes; which puts our zeal in safe keeping; which , in a word , insures all our virtues , and makes even our imperfections useful . This it is which inspires good counsel; which is answerable for the success of our undertakings; which makes us masters of circumstances; which sanctifies every condition of life , and which determines every duty .— Massillon. public. It is all ‘in the family.’ Clearly, from the standpoint ot Masters, all nations are members of one family,—even though one or more of them may have become instruments of the Black Lodge. “Point number two: there is an absolute difference between the criticisms of a man like Lloyd George, writing for the American press, and attributing evil motives to the actions of his own Government—addressing the American mob as a politician, in the hope that the feeling he arouses in America will strengthen his hands in England (that he writes for money may have no bearing on the case)—and the criticisms of those whose opinions appear in the Quarterly; for the Quarterly is written only for those who are looking for the Truth, regardless of politics and votes; whose minds are open in regard to the existence of the Lodge, even when they do not as yet actively believe in it; who turn to the Quarterly in the hope that it will give them further light on the principles of Theosophy, and who thus deliberately place them¬ selves within the range of Lodge influence. “ ‘There is no revelation but the ever-continuing.’ Just as the Masters gave knowledge to the world—which really means ‘to the few’—in the early days of the Society, first in Isis Unveiled, then through the pages of The Theosophist, Lucifer, The Path (so long as H. P. B. or W. Q. Judge were con¬ nected with them), as well as in many books, such as The Secret Doctrine, Light on the Path, The Voice of the Silence,— so they have continued to share that some readers of T HE Recorder began the proceedings by saying the Quarterly appeared to misunderstand the attitude o our contributors when dealing with national and international questions. “What ought to be our aim?” he asked. “Surely, to reflect, so far as we are able, the attitude of the Masters. I do not see how that can be questioned. Next, what is the attitude of the Masters? Here, the analogy of a father or mother with a number of children may help us. The father, let us hope, is profoundly interested in the development of each one of them. It is his duty to see both the best and the worst in them, and, where these overlap, to foster the growth of the best, and to do everything in his power to discourage the worst. He may have to be severely outspoken at times, and will not hesitate to ‘speak out’ about one of them in the presence of the others, if by so doing he thinks he can impress the delinquent more deeply. He is just, and distributes praise or reproof as his children deserve. He expects more of the older children than of the younger, and, while he has no favourites, his hopes for some may properly be greater than for others. “With that picture and feeling clearly in mind, let us see how it works out in the case of the Lodge of Masters vis-d-vis to the nations of the world, their children. One child savagely attacks another. Point number one: Masters are far from being au-dessus de la melee. Point number two: depend¬ ing upon the circumstances, as, for instance, the provocation received (if any), they will be more or less angry with the aggressor. Point number three: they will be determined to see justice done, although it may not be possible for them to accomplish this immediately. Point number four: should the offending child prove unrepentant and recalcitrant, it may be necessary to cut him off from the rest of the family until he says he is sorry, and proves it. “This may help to explain the attitude of the Quarterly during and after the Great War. “But now we come to times of so-called peace, such as the present. One child, say America, is terribly pleased with itself, and the father says so,— right out before the other children (and if the Lodge is compelled to speak through the Quarterly, for lack of a better instrument, who should com¬ plain?). This does not mean that every citizen of America is pleased with himself: we know too many of its citizens who are painfully self-depreciatory! It means that the spirit of the country, as revealed in its newspapers, in the speeches of its politicians, and in other ways, is one of, ‘ I am holier, richer, more intelligent than you are.’ It is a spirit that needs to be banged, and to be banged hard. “Point number one under this head: when a father speaks to his children, there is no such thing as ‘washing one’s dirty linen in public.’ There is no 264 266 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY can get along with this sort of thing, because no one, I think, would dare to claim that any nation is perfect. “ Point number three: just as individuals have a higher and a lower nature, with many characteristics and motives that are mixed , and the inevitable ‘defects of their qualities’so is it with nations. Further, just as a father may become almost distracted because of the way in which his son is led astray by the defects of his qualities—kind-heartedness perhaps manifesting as a total inability to say ‘No’ at the right time—so we can imagine the Masters, not as ‘distracted’, but in a corresponding frame of mind, when they see some nation—one of their children—pursuing a course of action that is inherently foolish, and that is bound to lead that nation and others into trouble. In a certain limited sense, the better the child (the better its general intentions), the more distracted is the father likely to become when he sees that child repeatedly doing the wrong or foolish thing. His attitude toward a bad child is different. “Point number four: just as we can think of the human personality as made up of hundreds or thousands of elementals, grouped under certain dominant heads, some good, some bad, so is it possible to think of a nation as made up of countless persons divided into groups, all these groups sharing certain basic national tendencies, but differing in vital respects, one group representing the acquisitive, perhaps the grasping tendencies of that nation; another group the ‘sporting’ or ‘fair play’ tendency (‘complex’, if you prefer that word); yet another, the sense of self-preservation, and so forth. Until the real and inner self has become paramount, the character of the nation, as of the individual, depends upon the established balance between these different groups, and upon which group is most frequently dominant. “Thus, through the predominance of egotism, Germany became an instru¬ ment of the Black Lodge; but this does not mean that all Germans are domi¬ nated by egotism, or that all Germans are blind to the condition of their country. Even in the case of an utterly selfish individual, there may be an undercurrent which sees better things, and which regrets the uncontrollable impulses and tendencies of the rest of the nature,—too feeble a minority to do anything about it, but aware, none the less, of its existence. I shall speak of this minority in Germany, later. “ There are detestable things in the French, and exasperating things in the English make-up. (Is any one of us free from tendencies which, at least to ourselves, seem detestable? Do we never exasperate our friends,—those closest and dearest to us?) By way of example: there is an element in France which will condone such a play as ‘ Napoleon IV’, by that unspeakable Maurice Rostand, in which the author suggests that Queen Victoria of England was responsible for the Prince Imperial’s death at the hands of the Zulus in 1879,— the truth being, as Pateologue has recently shown, that the old Queen had thought of the Prince as a possible son-in-law, and, as related in the last ‘Screen of Time’, was kindness and generosity itself to the boy’s mother and father. That element in France is thoroughly hateful, as is the political ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 267 element typified by Caillaux; but neither of them is France , any more than an individual’s lower nature is himself , unless he permits it to dominate him. “In the same way there is an element in England which those who love England find peculiarly exasperating, partly because it expresses the defect or perversion of a very fine quality, and partly because of the self-complacent stupidity which it engenders. The quality is a sense of fair play which really amounts to a sense of noblesse oblige ,—as rare among nations as it is among men. The perversion of this quality is shown in the attitude of a great many English people toward Germany since the war: it is ‘grown-up and superior to be ‘just’, and justice, in this case, means that you should always be ready with a good word for the ‘defeated’ party, and equally ready to criticize your late Allies, especially France. There are boys who, having done something rather splendid, react from it by adopting an attitude of ‘calm detachment’ from themselves and their own performance. Somewhat mortified by their moments of self-forgetfulness—by their enthusiasm and sacrifice—they will go so far as to impugn their own motives rather than have it supposed that they are what they had seemed to be. There are men whose ideals carry them no further than being kind and gentle, and who, if held up by a high¬ wayman, would find it more congenial to invent excuses for his behaviour than to defend the women in their care. Having done violence to their inclination, they seize the first opportunity to shake hands, very gently, with the man they have knocked down. They are being what they call just , but what some of us call, idiotic. Further, they are encouraging the high¬ wayman to renew his assault and to finish his job more effectively next time. Always judging others by themselves, they are convinced that highwaymen long for peace—for a quiet home in the country, among lambs and chickens— and are grieved if you fail to accept their view. “There is a baser element, of course—the tradesman element—which combines readily with the well-intentioned (and we know how the road to Hell is paved). The tradesman element is governed solely by a short-sighted sense of expediency: to trade with Russia and with Germany will be profitable in the present; let the future take care of itself. This element would consider it necessary to pay its bills, in order to maintain its credit; but its appreciation of right and wrong is primitive, to say the least. . ^ “So, in England, you find a combination of different elements, all inclined^ to shut their eyes to facts and probabilities whenever these are uncomfortably —a Christian Science attitude such as existed before the war; a general desire to be friends with everybody and not to ‘take sides’. The theory seems to be that nations are neither good nor bad (that evil is an old-fashioned illusion), and that if ‘ Peace, Peace’ be uttered often enough, Peace will endure for ever. It is the popular tune to sing. Consequently, the majority of politicians— Conservative, Liberal, and Labour alike—are now singing it, some, because they helped to compose it. “ ‘There is no religion higher than Truth’ is not their motto. If it were, I believe they would know the truth, for those who seek, find; and the truth 268 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY is that the White Lodge and the Black are at war perpetually, with the souls of men and the souls of nations ‘in jeopardy every hour’. Stupidity arising from blindness, which in its turn arises always from some moral defect, such as self-satisfaction or laziness,—stupidity can be used by the Black Lodge as a means to its evil ends, and when a nation behaves stupidly, those who love the White Lodge and who strive to serve its purposes, feel as if they wanted to catch that nation by the scruff of its neck and shake it, not because they are ‘down on it’, but because their exasperation is a distant echo of that which must be the paternal feeling of the Lodge. “Take one other instance: do you know of anything more foolish at the present time, internationally, than the way in which England kow-tows to America? English statesmen, so-called, announce almost daily that their chief aim in life is to please and to co-operate with this country. By so doing, they invite snubs,—and who can blame Washington for administering them freely? Such servility is not the attitude that creates respect here; so that England defeats her own ends and constantly weakens the bond that ought to unite the two countries,—a bond which, in the opinion of some of us, the Masters would wish to see strengthened. If England were to forget America, and were to proceed with its own affairs on a common-sense basis, this country would soon be asking for notice. Ambassadors, living in Washington and thrown chiefly with 1 statesmen ’ and politicians, are the worst possible judges of American public opinion. . . . But have I made our attitude clear?” “Not altogether, I think,” the Philosopher suggested. “It will seem to some people that you have put internationalism in the place of patriotism,— which is not in the least what you mean, but which would be inferred by those whose idea of patriotism is, ‘My country, right or wrong.’ The question of course is: What is true patriotism? The answer, as usual, is to be found in the example of Masters. No one can question the tragic devotion of the Master Christ to the country of his birth—Palestine. ‘And when he was come near, he beheld the city (Jerusalem), and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.’ Yet no Jew ever lived who understood his people as he did, or who condemned the largest section of them so outspokenly: ‘Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?’ He certainly did not identify himself with the Scribes and Pharisees! The Master K. H., in The Occult World , reveals the same attitude, and is equally outspoken about the land of his birth. In other words, the patriotism which is not keenly alive to national defects, and fearless in condemnation of them—which is not working consciously to change evil into good, and good into better—is just as foolish and untheosophical as the so-called love of a mother, whose children, because hers, are perfect.” “What were you going to say about enlightenment in Germany?” the Student now asked the Recorder. “One of our German members was good enough to send me several copies of a weekly newspaper called Die Menschheit, published at Wiesbaden, the motto ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 269 fVip Progress of Nations through Of which is: ‘For the Peace of shows the existence Self-knowledge.’ The sender m q{ their count ry is very similar to of a minority in Germany whose op - t ifl rough translation, and to our own. It is a pleasure, therefore to q t remaining conscience express satisfaction that this least remnant of con- of Germany) still exists, for, * an individ ual is exact, science is better than none The anal ■ & , Menschhe it, in one of its “The writer of the article in qu Louvain between the Rector of the recent issues, reported the on the new Library: “Destroyed University (who caused the American aid”, to be removed, in deference by German war fury, in the interest of European ^ conmct ’ and passion - of retaining the original insenp 1 °*’ which wro te of the Rector of the and we agree with the Begia ,, True brotherly love requires precisely University’s reference to charity . bending before the inexorable that I should not spare my brother t V ^ ^ . g {ar from a rea l service to might of Justice and Truth. P undeveloped and ”, peep,! whose political the nations «n met. unenlightened condition, to bu ( , ie bo „ e st explanation of what forgetfulness; to spare the Germa pj natkms rega rding the past, happened, and the actual ju g people. “Guilt” is after all not Ours is fundamentally a very u ow . men only, and which therefore something which has « with~u fehow^ ^ ^ pleasure . can simply be cancelled invisible Powers, who are not satisfied guilt is before all a challenge of * e repaired. Had what was until the crime has been %" h een condemned and regretted, perpetrated by Germany a ^ m ®V? f h a way that a genuine conscious- even b, an UiU of the 0'™“cv.^thing would be different, ness of guilt to! been made mamfe.t J| ,, y official German Instead of this, Belgium has ^ce mo ^ should not b e encouraged Commission. Such induct caus^h justly said that he who by harmful illusions of r is in reality preparing to treat his^ too easily excuses the guilt of a „ is involved in what purport own faults lightly. How much ^"when, in truth, through mere to be Christian readiness to ber ^ ^ ^ in other men » feebleness, every forceful mo «. P 0 f the WO rld, the awak- betrayed! But Chnsl.not We decline to accept that 27 o THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY all doors to obdurate insolence, and which lacks the courage to refuse recog¬ nition. This appears to us to be the worst form of unfriendliness to Germany, which will finally ruin our nation, and give its most undesirable constituents the confidence that one may permit oneself the wildest barbarity in the house of a stranger, and yet, after a time, without any word of excuse or sorrow, may visit it again, and that no further allusion to the barbarity committed will be allowed. So, then: We should wish, for the enlightenment of German youth visiting Louvain, knowing nothing beyond the official lying fable—that unfortunate German soldiers had to protect themselves against Belgian attack —we should wish that the words might remain,— Furore teutonico diruta , Dono americano restituta .’ ” Most satisfactory! the Philosopher exclaimed. “Is it a signed article? It is! Well, that is what I call real patriotism, because Germans who say such things in Germany are ostracized, when not actively persecuted, by the immense majority of their fellow-countrymen.” “Speaking of patriotism”, began the Student, “there has been a Presidential Election, and-” “No politics in the Theosophical Quarterly,” the Recorder interrupted severely. I was not going to talk about politics, but about politicians”, protested the Student. “Worse and worse!” But the Student would not be discouraged. “Now really,” he said, “I could not be hired to talk politics. What is more, I shouldn’t know how. But the principles, or lack of principles, underlying politics, are just as much the concern of a student of Theosophy, as the principles underlying war and peace, or any other department of human behaviour. Don’t you agree? ” We agreed. I have been reading a life of Kitchener: Soldier and Statesman , by S Stuart Stamtt, published very cheaply, though well, by The Religious Tract Society It is an appreciative account of a man who was not a politician. Jle was a soldier, a statesman, and a gentleman. The jways and motives of politicians were as foreign to him as the ways of earth-worms or bats. He was in mv opinion, the only great man of the World War.” ’ * This was certainly a challenge. Someone suggested Foch "No” said the Student; "Foch is a great soldier-a real man-and a man of honour but he still tries to justify the Armistice, accepting full responsibility for it’ while washing his hands of the Peace which followed. Foch knew that the terms of peace would be Settled by the politicians, and as he had suffered terri- v lr a n alI T through the war ’ he should have foreseen what happened ter at Versailles It was inexcusable not to realize that his Armistice ; was premature and that the German armies should never have been allowed to return to Germany, armed, and with flags flying. Incidentally, all honour to eneral Bliss, representing the United States, who urged that the Germane should be totally disarmed,—the opinion of Sir Henry Wilson also. ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 271 war would last for several years, and based all- his plans accordingly. It was this and his refusal to send every available soldier to France during the early months of the war-declaring that he must keep some in England to train is armies of the future—that did as much as anything to undermine his nfluence. Sir John French, Sir Henry Wilson, Joffre, Foch,—all of them vociferated that the war must be over within a few months, and that it was little short of criminal to refuse them the men they so badly needed ” Said the Engineer: "I thought it was Kitchener’s failure to produce sufficient shells that turned the British Cabinet against him.” "That was the pretext of his detractors”, the Student replied; "but the facts are that shortly after Lloyd George was put in charge of munitions replacing Kitchener, shells began to pour in-everyone of them the fruit of Kitcheners initiative and preparation, although naturally, being what he was and is, Lloyd George took to himself the credit that belonged to the man w o was not a politician and who 'did not advertize’. Nearly a year after the Ministry of Munitions had been formed, the manager of Kynochs assured Commander Bellairs, who repeated this in the House of Commons, that his company had not turned out a single article as yet to the order of the Ministrv of Munitions and that everything was still being done on the basis of earlier orders from Kitchener. Kitchener was a mystic,—a very practical mystic: that is why he is of special interest to us. The politicians could not understand him, and sensed his complete distrust of them. They were afraid of him at first but like wolves, little by kittle they gathered courage, pushed to it by vox pop 'uli in the person of Northchffe, until, in June, 1916, when he left England on the Hampshire for Russia, he was practically degommed, to use the slang of that period. They are a crew! 6 Many years ago, H. P. B. told a young member of the T. S. that if he carried out his intention of becoming a lawyer—a barrister—it would ruin him theosophically. Preferring his own opinion to hers, he studied law ecame a member of the Bar, and in due course completely justified her warn! ing. He is still alive, but of course has a very poor opinion of her' The law does not necessarily ruin all men, but its study and practice are likely to accentuate certain tendencies—such as hair-splitting and disingenuousness— if these exist already. Politics, as a career, is more debasing than any other known to me, and with every year that passes it seems to sink lower in the A scale. King Edward VII certainly had had a long and intimate acquaintance i with politicians, and what his opinion of them was, not long before his death may be gathered from an incident related by General Smith-Dorrien in his Memories. He was at Biarritz, where the King was staying. ‘One day His Majesty, on meeting me, asked in his deep voice if I had heard that a certain Captain m the Army was leaving it to become an M. P„ and added - "Fancy a man leaving the Army to become a politician; a nice profession that now- adays.” ’ maiaicu Hum me nrst mat tne 272 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY “One need only think of what men have to do in order to succeed: first, curry favour with certain political leaders so as to obtain a nomination; second, appeal to the mob to vote for you. Think of it in terms of The Theo- sophical Society, which we must imagine, however, to be divided into two camps, with a number of uncertain votes to be won by this party or the other; and which, by a further stretch of the imagination, we must suppose to be served by officers on a salary basis, instead of without pay of any sort, either direct or indirect,—this being, of course, the way in which The Theosophical Society is officered, none of its members receiving the smallest compensation for their services. So then: at a preliminary caucus, I have been nominated for the office, let us say of Treasurer, with salary, ‘appointments’, and other ‘ad¬ vantages’. Before the next Convention, at which the election of officers takes place, it will be necessary to visit all the Branches, and even the unattached members, to solicit their votes. Try to conceal it as I may, what I shall really be saying will be: ‘Fellow members, please observe what a superior person I am. The other man who is running for this office is quite obviously my inferior. Think of all I have done for the Society, and how little he has done. I rely upon my looks to persuade you to vote for me!’ ‘Perish rather The Theosophical Society,’ before we come to that; and yet that is the accepted procedure in national politics. Worse,—for if a candidate for office be married, he must drag his wife around with him, and exhibit her on platforms, in order to con¬ vince the public that she is ‘presentable’ and will not disgrace the White House or the Executive Mansion in Little Rock or Topeka. If he visits Chinatown it will be to solicit votes, which means that he must kiss Chinese babies and pretend that his lack of a queue is one of the deeper sorrows of his hard and service-loving life. He must be photographed splitting logs in his own backyard, with the legend attached, ‘This is how he spends his Saturday afternoons’, and, in order to appeal to another type of voter, he must be photographed in ‘plus fours' on the links, swinging a golf club, smiling expan¬ sively, with the legend, ‘Our candidate takes a day off.’ “Now I protest that even if a man can begin that sort of thing with self- respect (and I don’t see how he can), it is bound to turn him into a mountebank at the end of a week or two. Therefore when people say that politics is in the hands of low class men because better class men selfishly keep out of it, my answer is that a better class man necessarily becomes low class as soon as he touches it, and that the fault lies with the system, and with the whole theory of government upon which that system is based." “Well, what is the remedy?" asked the Historian cheerfully. . 41 ' You answered the Student, “that if there be no remedy, nothing is gained by complaining of the condition; but there I should not agree with you. If a man were a leper and did not know it, I should say that the first step would be to start him looking for a cure, and that this could be done helpfully, even if his informant had no panacea to offer him. So long as a sick man thinks he is in blooming health, he is likely to go from bad to worse. The world to-day is delighted with its achievement of democracy. The first 0N the screen oe time 273 _• ^e astral . • se eing things upside down ^ ^ know, thing to do is toooj^ ^ take several the ultimate ><* W . 1 A the W* %, little leaven finally leav lump. , ultimate object individual? 0 v( i ra -headed S all governn« J'“ ou i d „tl,«bee.^W Ilby . ”h. diSty would lie » ^ ileeo tesla b ke KUcn parfeme nt. The Q tQ acce pt such * mo nths or Congress o in persuading to pieces after {rom the Kitchener, and would tea {oresee his Ahnost iof^'Ae « f« « adenly (she - »» th years, and ^ e w Visitor suddenly V ■'Oh'” said our New j thought Y u • an Avatar must be t . ttdrfc? .. „ por the moment 1 ve , an Avatar, don t . . war ming up- - ve me time, jolly to be an student rephe , m e l{ yo uU g Avata r J “T’m not sure > in n mav come oacK- know what an n I should think.” 274 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY “No”, the Student insisted earnestly: “a great worry, I assure you. You may have to provide for them in the first place, and then some of them may develop ideas, and ideas are always a worry. Whatever you do, never trifle with ideas; they’re dangerous.” “But I’m full of ideas!” she protested, clasping her hands delightedly. “Well, well”, he said; “and you’re never anxious about them?” For a moment she looked puzzled. Then she said: “Not very ; though there are moments, of course, when one is not busy.” The Student took a card from his pocket. “I received this some weeks ago from a friend who was then in England. It is headed: Overheard in an Orchard’, and there is a picture at the bottom, of a robin, sitting on a twig of holly, talking to a sparrow. These are the words: “ ‘Said the Robin to the Sparrow, “ I should really like to know Why these anxious human beings Rush about and worry so.” “ ‘Said the Sparrow to the Robin, “Friend, I think that it must be That they have no Heavenly Father Such as cares for you and me.” “Oh yes”, she said eagerly; “that explains it; that’s why I don’t worry; thank you so much.” “Not at all”, he replied; “but I really like those verses, and decided as soon as I read them that I would drag them into the ‘Screen’ somehow; so I am your debtor, you see, for having given me my opportunity. I did not introduce them as a joke.” “As a joke?” she questioned. “I never'joke”, he said solemnly. Some of us felt that the atmosphere was becoming a shade too rarefied, and were relieved when the Engineer, rather hesitatingly, asked if he might speak. Assured that his contribution would be welcome, he said: “A few days ago I had an imaginary conversation with a Master,—with my Master, as I like to think of him. It occurs to me that the fruit of it may be of use to others who stand, as I do, at the very beginning of the Way. I was dressing, and was feeling grateful for things that had happened the day before. I caught myself saying very clearly in my mind: ‘ Oh my Lord, I do love thee,— deaf, dumb and blind as I am, I do love thee. Well, you have some¬ thing better to do than to listen to that sort of talk; and what could you say anyhow, even if I could hear you!’ Came a mental reply: ‘Why don’t you listen and find out? I might have something to say after all!’ To which I replied, almost aloud: ‘Listen! But I can’t hear; you know I can’t hear!’ Again came a mental reply: ‘Of course you can’t hear; you don’t try to hear.’ Then, though the words, if there were any words, escaped me, I had a clear ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 275 mental picture of . man who could not colour, and who said so; and of a man who 1 hijerence pigeon and a robin, but who was qui e u bad been told were between the dozen different km s o \\ar^ tbat either of these to be encountered in his garden ; an rea « men could easily cultivate the became able to -that is to say. by making himself notice ^er^untu ^ ^ give the differences their correct names. habitually principle applied to my inability toso^1 o Linguish, at to examine the quality, so to speak, of my thought, so a ^ first roughly, between those that ‘com particula r dis- reach me from below, following this with a more careful ana P ^ y crimination, until I am able to distinguish the voice or qu ^ or Z„ in what, so far, had merely been a ‘voice from above avo c wiser section of my own inner the difference between its exactly the same process as it learns to r g nurse's voice, and its mother’s its father£ visitor asked . “Whose voice was it that told you to list . its f ru its. The Engineer laughed. “How shouId I k ^. j^^f one 0 f our barriers it cannot have been a bad one. Sometimes I think: that^one ot ^ lies in adopting the attitude quite unconscioudy, that unlej ^ „ f , Master, it is no, wort!‘ “fo “eac h“hethe own inner self, so as to en should desire to make me result is sufficiently satisfactory. If ^convey it to me. a present, and were to send his se ^ an J ,r ?' ]{ must bring it - ? Truth is whether i^comes'froin a^Maste^or one of his cMlas, or from our ‘Guardian Angel’, or from some higher level of our own ug must be ,„d E e said, '.he was called-though not for great importance. Quite recen y y Eoiscopal Church, as the first time—to what has come to b. known. mto'Et ™»P ^ ^ ^ 'Buchmanism'. It is a movemcn w nc ^ ^ ^ thg im . pirat i on of the complete self-surrender to t e wi ’ he affairs 0 f life, both inner and H ol y Spirit as daity and ^>nry^n ^ that nece ssarily arouses sym- outer. At first sign , - «Hv»nn<rh further consideration will path, in a student of We know K.S g £ htr^nlZ" cut themseu.es for i.ck of practice in its use. 276 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY “ ‘Buchmanism’ is nothing new. It is as old as the everlasting hills. To depend chiefly upon the ‘inner light’ was the basis upon which the Society of Friends (Quakerism) was founded. There have been many similar move¬ ments in the Roman Catholic Church—that of Molinos, to mention only one of them. Fundamentally, Lao-tsze taught the same doctrine Its danger lies in the tendency of the untrained—of the uninitiated, to speak more accu- ratdy-to confuse the voice of God with the voice of their own desire Right discrimination can come only as the result of years of self-study and discipline under the direction of an expert. Take the Engineer’s analogy-that of learning to distinguish between different kinds of birds. It is not easy to do this without a teacher. It is notorious that the neophyte, no matter how conscientious, is easily mistaken: no ornithologist would dream of accept¬ ing his ‘say so’. In the same way, imagine a lot of College boys, suddenly convinced that they could hear the voice of the Holy Spirit, and undertaking to guide their own lives accordingly! Inevitably they would blunder, perhaps terribly. . “Theosophy makes it clear that to follow inner guidance is both a science and an art, and that—as in any science or art—thorough acquaintance with past achievements and failures is essential to success. Respect for experi¬ ence, and for the experience of the entire human race, is the foundation upon which Theosophy would build the advances of to-day and to-morrow,—always checking the ‘inspiration’ of the present moment in the light of the past. In that sense, Theosophy is most conservative, while always striving to deepen and broaden the understanding of its followers by encouraging them to be fearless in interpretation, and'ardent in their search for inner illumination insisting, above all things, that no one can hope to hear the Voice of the Silence—which is the voice of Masters—correctly, until he has learned to recognize, and utterly to disregard, the voice of his own self-will. “That ‘Buchmanism’ has been condemned by many on grounds entirely false, goes without saying. The Churchman , for instance, attacks it on the ground that ‘the Christian ideal of life in its larger social aspects as it faces the inequalities and injustices of human relationships is given no considera¬ tion except such as the most elementary goodwill may promise’; but the Churchman is significant only because it is so curiously heathen in its outlook. a square meal for everyone, at the same table and, if possible, out of the same dish, appears to be the height of its ideal. True, it would wish Christ to bless the meal; but why, it has never explained. “My own criticism of this new-old movement would be that it tends to cheapen the spiritual life, and the life of discipleship, by making it appear far easier than actually it is. On the other hand, I believe it contains more of genuine religion than most of its critics have ever dreamed of in their philosophy, and I hope it will grow and prosper. The world is not ready for Theosophy. Meanwhile ‘ Buchmanism ’ could do much for the world if the world would let it.” “Would its benefits outweigh its dangers?” the Historian questioned. SCREEN OF TIME \ “ It is certainly far less dan gt rou s ^ ’ Mr. Griscom’s ‘Letters to Students for they constantly deal with was a birth-right Quaker when difficult to imagine that, before (,he magazine he “I think so”, the V than the materialism throw the principles he joined The this issue < have coi.— eternity it seems! shall miss them. What a _ now, though his physical Someone- for many years, now the greatest pleasure, in spite subject of Chfelaship, ’■.- not hope to do more in this future life. “That is nonsense and c “What you call ‘age’, as if life-long accumulation of sm£ of whose house is packed Old letters and broken furniture^and emp and who says he is too old to have the children or his executors or somebody, wi on’. Yet he is quite strong enough to go t like it- he can, in fact, do anything he re case, it is not your children who will ever 1 . V ou fn your next life, you will orTtop of you, and with the likelihood tin ”, Ivitil. years before you become .. R the eoal of existence. “That is all very well”, grumbled our trouble is 'a life-long accum^ata® of suggest, I am weighted down with that, practical immobility? ...» t u e “Not unless you insist upon , within you which is not weighted down, untrammelled by the nightmare of the gested, is full of rubbish; but JJ«* have been doing. There is a ladder t ladder to a place of light and freedom, p a level of your consciousness w " u are old than when you are you** self- continually identify yourself witl eyes (as it were). Even one step up valuable light on the who e suu^ involved. As you know, he Theosophical Society. It is Ll e of the Quarterly appears immemorated the tenth anniversary The last of his letters will appear They have been of immense he p o friend he was,-the most loyal of friends; ar • 1 absence leaves an irrepiacedi -he shall be nameless-who has been a 1 remarked that he had read Mr. , in spite of the fact that they while he, the speaker, was ‘too ( incarnation than pave tl 278 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY strength enough to hurl some of the litter from your cellar. Try it and see! A spoiled child; an indulged and self-indulgent child! That was evident; but if he could have heard, as some of us heard, the undercurrent of passionate regret in the Ancient’s voice—for wasted gifts, for lost opportunities and the fear of what lay ahead, not in this life, but in the next I think he would have realized that, behind and beyond the Ancient, the ever-lasting arms were wide outstretched to welcome his smallest efforts. “There are people everywhere”, concluded the Ancient, “who say that they long to know; that they have tried to find their Master, but have failed, and, they add, what is the use? My answer is that they have not tried and that they do not long to know; for if a man longs, really longs, to solve some problem, or to find some hidden treasure, or to discover some unknown coun¬ try, or to acquire the mastery of some art, he will live his life accordingly: he will study, labour, prepare himself, with his objective ever in view. He will not ‘give up’ other aims; other aims will disappear for utter lack of attractiveness. And how many, seeking in that spirit, have failed to find! I SSL y t —none. It may seem dogmatic, but I speak from observation and experience, not from theory; and my observation is that a man finds what he seeks, and if he seeks Christ or any other Master, he cannot fail to find him. But he must seek,—not just for half an hour or an hour a day, for¬ getting his search during other hours; he must seek with a hungry, passionate, devoted heart; he must seek with intelligence, imagination, determination. He is asking for the utmost that life has to give,—for more than wealth, more than worldly honour: he asks to look Heaven in the eyes.” Then, after a pause, he added: “Oh Light of the World, Light of the World, thou art so near, so still, so kind, so wonderful,—nearer always to the humble than to the wise,—we who have failed thee in a thousand ways can only plead: call swiftly, strongly, surely, that souls may arise to fight thy battles and to fill the world with thy praise. Open their ears that they may hear; lift the veils from their eyes that they may see. We, who have not earned this or any gift from thee, yet know thee as the boundless giver. In that is our hope,—that a new love may be bom, a new fire be lit, a new light may shine, to carry onward and for ever the tidings of thy kingdom and thy peace.” T. letters to students -- January 21 st,I9H- have, or may th ' n ^ y °^ younge r members is nearly * P b t the se are intercourse with all the you g ^ fegret their mistakes aid . iz ss Smuch and cannot be Xmtry glad that backin thematter of c^cisrm ^ ^ time . More than 1* ^ ^ S n U ot h d C o n goT True U - - S^ y0 S»«, unfaltering edort te ^ These ,„ssle, barriers. ™ . strenuous time with “ n There is nothing more I hope that the stren ^ they shou ld. There is n ot b '“ “*« * Cl ’ i ' 4 i S something it fSSUy but n heaven-sent «PP»^ ay you should-m™ to lean, »d may deplore the necess.ty, the opportunity, no matter * * * A v be due in part to the misdirected userf .^eun'neclssary is the immoral. F ° r “ t P o{ reneW ed strength andmspira ^ 0 ur- but always way we learn; and»Mo 8 yaluable W e are perfect, ana in* 2?9 LETTERS TO STUDENTS THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY : not perfect, that mistakes are inevitable, and then work ;titude of mind should be when we do wrong. of life; but only the saints can do perfectly the small duties of everyday—day after day and year after year. It is thus that Heaven is gained. 3. It is your motive in doing your daily tasks that turns them from mechanical drudgery into life-giving, spiritual forces. If you are puzzled between two courses of action, it is some comfort to realize that so far as others are concerned it probably matters little what you do, if your decision is based on proper motives. The powers of life can use either course of action for the benefit of others, if you put vitality into it by your motive: and the amount of power in it will be in proportion to the purity of your motive. 4. We ought to try to make these decisions, these daily, hourly efforts at self-conquest and self-repression, yield a harvest of joy, yield inspiration and a strength that will enable us to carry on the fight still more aggressively. We are too prone to lose the benefit of our self-denial and the value of the discipline life imposes on us. We must meet it and digest it—these experiences —in order to get the full benefit from it. Do not think too much about “dead” spots. We all have them, and we all live through them; learn by degrees to pump life and vitality into them. Think of your lower nature as a child you are bringing up. It hates to go to school: it hates the discipline and restraint which school imposes: yet you persist, because you know that teaching it to read will open a whole new wonderful world, which will many thousand times repay the trial and pain of learning. It is so with the spiritual life. With best wishes, I am, Sincerely, C. A. Griscom. With kind regards and best wishes, Sincerely, C. A. Griscom. October 27th, 1914* - ■ —I am so very sorry 's pain and illness on top of the I could do to help. * I think you may The Master will not force them It is your duty to seek them, and as much of It is just as much your duty to rest as to pray, for both, so far as you possibly can. of trouble all have their meaning and their purpose: they are It is often hard—sometimes impossible to discover this but that does not matter. Then we must have shall understand. and nothing more will be expected of you. I mean ■Do the best you can. Not what you think you ought to had more time or more knowledge, or less e that makes things different from what by circumstances, so that You are fortunate that Follow this path and all You are much in my mind these days of trial and stress, that you should have had the burden of rest of your load. I wish there was something One thing: about your getting plenty of sleep and res^. misunderstand your duty in these matters, upon you. He cannot do that, them as you ought to have. You must make opportunity These times not accidents, meaning and this purpose, faith. Some day we Do the best you can exactly what I say- be able to do if you were stronger, or demands upon you, or anything els. You have your work, your duty, laid out for you there is no doubt what you ought to do all the time, it is so, for the way is not so clear for most of us. will be well. I have not bothered you with letters or commer that you need them just now. Your path is vei certain things you must try always to remember,— deep spiritual laws none the less. 1. Remember that you can find the Master in routine with children and house, not only as well as working at-, but better, for your metier, your & at home, or your circumstances would be different. 2. Remember always that it is what we are that < Holiness is acquired by struggle and effort doing well, not by doing heroic things. Anyone, almost, can n _ can work themselves up to a point of great self-sa Xmas Day, 1914. Dear- I asked-to take you my Xmas greetings, but I want to supplement them with some direct expression of my interest and affection. You are doing we ll > —some things very well. Do not allow that old cloud of doubt and dis¬ trust to rise between yourself and your real happiness. The Master can only give us our heart’s desire on terms and conditions that will make it permanent. Help him. Do not hinder him. Help him by surrendering everything to him with the complete trust of a little child. Others may fail you, may not understand, but he always will. I do not think it necessary for you to talk to me about these things. Even if I do not know details, they are not necessary the complete realization of With best wishes for a happy New Year, for your real desires, Sincerely, C. A. Griscom, 282 theosophical quarterly New Year’s Day, 1915 - “‘dolman, the day .» "thou. my having th, pleasure of wishing you all good things during this corning year. therefore should have —- -— waste of time. . . .. t v, P roa d to the Master. I hope 1915 will find you appreciably further on the road * * * * * * * a. Wp are trying to leam the Science of I have nothing new to say 0 > • university learning the elements Life. A man spends four years at a TestTS life trying to of one of the secular sciences,^ ^ patience> therefore, in our task: Tisth^ ot X duties, our - disposition.^^ ZnT 2 own hands. We all know what we ought to do. It is a question of doing it. Y ouuYfllritTyou enumerate is a besetting sin. I do not think that either of the faults youenum defin ite, Look rather to forms of self-wi to a ^ obstinate little person ttXoresXSXngs as you want them. Work out something definite to do about this. With best wishes, I am, July 22nd, 19 1 5 * Dear-- # * * . * * * * It seems to me that your resolution to stop and fold your hands at th ® h °"* . ' admirabTe one and I recommend that you keep it up. Any physical practiced! that kind, no matter how trivial, done with “intention , makes°ne positive, and helps the will. Only we mm* strive to be fathM So to rd"it e rw,«r.o“o sr - von tolld a valuable and favourite horse. Feed it proper food grve rt proper exercise and do not overwork it. At times you may have to drive and whip and spur to carry past some emergency, but the daily routine ought to be well ■■i LETTERS TO STUDENTS 2g 3 within its normal capacity. Rest is essential to the proper performance of all your duties. . Thank you very much for your desire to help me. Your “ intention does, I am sure, and I appreciate it and am very much touched by it. At the same time there is nothing the matter with me. You must not let the over-enthusi¬ astic speculations of others disturb you. We none of us have a bit more to bear than is good for us and than we can bear with ease, if we behave as we should. The fact that I may have shown evidence of fatigue or something, simply means that I have not been doing what I ought to do, in the way I ought to do it. There is no way out of this conclusion. Do not forget that, although you may hear many methods discussed, and have a great variety of suggestions made to you, Occultism consists in being good. The object of all this striving, of all our efforts, is to be good. Being good means being like God, like the Master. Prayer, meditation, a rule of life, all these things are simply aids to being good, to being like the Master. Think of them from this point of view. It will give point and reason to them. Remember, too, that you can be good at home, looking after your house and children, just as well, and more easily, than while doing anything else, any¬ where else. The environment the Master has given you is that in which it is easiest for you to grow. I hope you are not finding this very hot day trying. I have always thought children very warm companions for a hot day! With kind regards, I am, Sincerely, C. A. Griscom. May 7th, 1916. There is one point upon which I should like to comment. ^ ou speak of critical thoughts of others, and you say truly that this comes from self—from self-centredness. , . r It also comes from misunderstanding. You see the facts, the outer facts, and often there does not appear to be any doubt about them. But your mind misinterprets them, not only misjudging, but actually mistaking their real meaning, and this often causes you pain. Most of the pain would disappear if you could see truly, could really under¬ stand what actually is. Your self-will and self-love stand in the way of this understanding; but you should try for it. Whenever you have pain of this kind, realize that it is a signal that you are doing or thinking something wrong. Stop' thinking about the event, and search for your wrong attitude and misunderstanding. ******* ■ THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY It seems to me that your occasional practice of doing all day what /• i__ rloeimc ic an i It seems to me mat yum K - ~ . . ov ^n PT1 f or some one else wants, regardless of your plans and desires, « an exceUen way of thwarting your self-will; but remember that you have the subtl will of the woman, which can want to be thwarted! .. ]H t Be good, be kind, be considerate, to servants, to friends to ch,ldren -J° husband. Seek for ways of doing what has to be done m the way that will be easiest or pleasantest for them, regardless of your way your will, y desire. Yet use common sense. You are not very well, and you must not over-tax your nerves and strength. With kindest regards, I am, Sincerely, C. A. Griscom. Instead of deploring that roses have thorns, I am glad the thorny stem ts capped with roses and that the tree bears bloom. Joubert. The Nile and Egyptian Civilization , by Alexandre Moret; translated by M. R. Dobie; Alfred A. Knoff, New York, 1927; price, $7.50. This book, like one reviewed in the last issue of the Quarterly (The Migration of Symbols) belongs to the series entitled the “History of Civilization", edited by C. K. Ogden. M. Moret, a Member of the Institut de France, and Professor at the College de France, is well known to Egyptologists, and this latest work of his is wholly convincing in regard to one of the most important aspects of Ancient Egyptian life,—the enduring inner unity which underlay its manifold outer expressions. Many writers, unconsciously attempting the impossible when commenting on the civilization of Ancient Egypt, endeavour to shed light on the subject by approaching it from some pet angle of their own; by an almost impeccable array of historical facts; by a wide survey of cultural habits and mannerisms; by a careful and often (though by no means always) sympathetic analysis of the religious aspects, the Pantheon, the ritual, life in the temples, and all. These, however, are but isolated rays illuminating some small area for a brief moment. M. Moret has gathered these rays together as the separated rays of the spectrum may be gathered, assuring us that in Ancient Egypt there were “no dividing lines." As the Sacred River kept open the channel of communication from end to end of the “Two Lands," from the austerity of the upper reaches to the low, sweet pasture lands of the Delta, reconciling the sharp contrasts of the long, narrow valley, leaving its peculiar mark on the outer conditions of living, so, we are told, “There were no water-tight compartments separating State from religion, the civil services from the priesthood, profane art from sacred art, science from dogma. In Egypt . . . what we call religious feeling was at the bottom of institutions of all kinds." Religious feeling —not religion, for that had many forms; religious feeling, or what in Theosophy we might term a consciousness of the reality and meaning of inner things, was what cemented into one powerful whole, political ideas, art, literary and scientific inquiry. It was this ingrained and deep rooted conviction of the reality of an invisible world, of its closeness to the visible, of the powers which lie hidden from the ordinary senses of men, which made possible the amazing continuity of this most amazing civilization, enabling it to survive all vicissitudes, to leap across vast periods of social and oolitical obscuration, to rise magnificently above the shame of conquest and the humiliations of defeat. In the early, golden days, when Egypt was young, it was in Pharaoh (whom students of Theosophy would think of as the living representative of the Lodge) that the “Sacred Force" was vested, and so long as he remained supreme, the ancient Faith lingered. With the gradual passing of his greatness; when many of the royal obligations were delegated to others; when in short, democracy began to creep in, the “mystical conception of power began to wane, and while there followed a long period of highly moral tendency, this era was, in fact, moral rather than spiritual. When it had reached the point where there was no longer “the profound feeling that godhead is a vital force, a creative energy," the end was at hand, and Egypt became, according to the words found in an ancient papyrus, “a body with¬ out a soul, a chapel without a god." The book closes with a famous Lament written by a Sage who lived in the twilight of Egypt’s glory. It is a bitter cry of the heart, because of the passing of the splendour which had once irradiated the “Beloved Land":—“Oh Egypt, Egypt, 285 286 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY of thy doctrines only fables will be left, in which thy posterity will no longer believe, and there will survive only words, engraved on stones, to tell of thy piety. ^ ^ Living India, by Savel Zimand. Longmans, Green and Co., London, New York, Toronto, 1928; price $3.00. . - Under certain heads, the author has compressed much valuable and accurate information concerning India, in a singularly readable book. He has read much, studiously and thought¬ fully. He has travelled much in India. He has a gift for descriptive writing. He is eminently fair minded. He has intellectual and moral earnestness; India and her problems have deeply moved him, and he communicates his feeling for India to his readers. Unfortunately, concerning ancient India, he sees only a part of the truth. This is due in some measure to the confusions introduced by the first generation of English Orientalists of the days of Warren Hastings, whose minds were warped by the false chronology of Archbishop Ussher with the result that they crowded millenniums into centuries and blurred the per¬ spective of a splendid past. It is in part due to the fact that the white Brahmans have re- written Indian history in their own interest. Arrogantly claiming to be representatives of the gods on earth, they have so coloured the story of past ages that the real greatness of the more ancient Rajputs is overshadowed. Savel Zimand repeats an ancient parable concerning the four castes, which illustrates this. The Brahmans, says this parable, proceeded from the mouth of Brahma; the Kshatriyas, or Rajputs, from the arms of Brahma; the Vaishyas or cultivators, from the waist of the Divinity; the servile Shudras, from his feet. Therefore the Brahmans claim pre-eminence. Yet the true meaning of the parable would seem to be not mystical but geographical. The Divinity here represents the sacred land of India. From the head, the North, where the Five Rivers descend from the Himalayas to the plains, came the white race of the Brahmans, entering through the mountain passes from Central Asia. The arms of India, stretching from Western Rajputana to Ayodhya, the modem Oudh, are the home of the red Rajputs. The yellow Vaishyas cluster across Central India, about the Vindhya Hills. The black Dravidians, from whom were drawn the Shudra caste, inhabit the South, the feet of Brahma Varsha, forming, it may be, a remnant of an ancient Lemunan population. . While he gives us an excellent account of the whole span of Indian history, so far as it can be summed up in a few chapters, and adds many vivid pictures of India to-day, Savel Zimand is especially interested in the movement of the modem reformers, agitators, home-rulers, beginning with the Indian National Congress. While he clearly sees that Brahmans have been the strongest and most intelligent element in all these modem movements, he does not draw the logical conclusion: that this modem agitation is an outcome of Brahman policy, the priestly hierarchy which has so long enslaved India now fighting to prolong their power in a new way, and using the modem weapons of constitutionalism for their own ambitious ends. He does bear testimony to the fact that the Brahmans demand for themselves the highly paid positions now held by Englishmen. But he does not clearly see that, if the fullest demands of the Indian home-rulers were granted to-morrow, the vast majority of toiling peasants would be no better off than before. Priestcraft and the tyranny of landlords, many of them Brahmans, would bear as hardly upon their necks as formerly. The solution of India’s problem is not so simple as it appears to the Western friends of the Indian agitators. J. Question No. 341. —It seems to me that one of the most terrible things \n life would be to lose a child,—to miss all the interesting things in the growth of the child. In the next life, that is, after death, does the child grow to maturity as we know it? If so, are there records or pictures of some sort to which a mother may, after her death, have access, and so not entirely lose knowledge of the development of that child? Answer. —Of one thing we may be certain: nothing in the universe ever permanently separates us from those we love. Love is the strongest bond there is, and will inevitably draw together in future lives, on this and the other side of death, those whose love is real. This drawing together becomes in time an actual union of consciousness, not a watching and yearning from the outside, as at present. Of course, the real child—the soul—did not die; it had dwelt for a time in a child’s body, and then left it. That may have been a young soul or a very old one; in any case, it and all other souls, including the mother’s, should go on growing toward “maturity”, to a state of splendour beyond our present imagination. That process will take, not a few score years, but thousands of lives. Both “child” and “mother” have already lived many lives before this one, and if they really loved one another, will be drawn together in the future as they were drawn together this time. Obviously, the development of the glorious potentialities of the soul is far more interesting to watch than the growth of a personality for a single life. In the astral light there are pictures of all that has ever happened. These can be seen by those who have the power and the right to look. J- F. B. M. Answer. —To lose a dearly loved child must indeed be a grief most difficult to bear. It would be far more terrible, however, to see such a child grow up, if the direction of its growth were toward selfishness and evil. Apart from that, it seems to the present writer that when the querent speaks of missing “all the interesting things in the growth of the child , much has been overlooked. Ask a mother who has brought her child to maturity whether joy or agony were the greater, as she fought for life against death, for virtue against vice, for high standards against bad example; and although she well may put the joy of her achievement first, she will not have forgotten the suffering. The nature of the after-death states depends entirely upon the stage of evolution attained by the Ego who was the child. If, in a future earth-life, I were to die in infancy, I hope most sincerely that it would not be necessary for me to “grow to maturity as we know it” in any after-death state; because I hope that I should not have lost my “maturity” in that world, m when incarnating. No one, however, is robbed of his desire: we find what we seek. The Red Indian finds his “happy hunting-ground”; the mother finds either the baby, or the soul, v depending upon which her longing has been fixed. And if it has been fixed on the child she lost, at just that age and of just that sweetness,—she will find the same child awaiting her, utterly unchanged; and the child will grow before her eyes, just as she had longed to see it grow,—and there will be no pain or sorrow or crying, for the former things will have passed away. Yet,—there are better things, for in that world there are “many mansions”, and, in the course of time, she may find better, deeper meanings (meaning within meaning) in the promise: “for the former things have passed away”. T - 287 288 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY Question No. 34 2 * —Observation of the motives from which I habitually act has shown me constant self-reference—the desire to get what I liked, to appear wise and good and yet please self, to avoid what was distasteful or required unwelcome effort, to give others what I thought they ought to want, to stand in the limelight. Or else, my acts were prompted by the lowest possible cause, just nervous energy. Please express this in strictly theosophic terms, using the seven Principles. Answer. —The phenomena faithfully recorded by the questioner lead one to suppose that his or her self-consciousness is mostly centred in the lower quartemary. The various forms of desire which are outlined, are characteristic of Kama-Manas, the mental-emotional nature with which most of us so persistently identify ourselves. Prana, the life-force, would seem to be the source of the “nervous energy" which we should control but which usually controls us. Linga Sharira, the astral body, may be conceived as a medium preserving the force which is put into every mental or physical act, so that a dynamic memory-image of the act is always present at some level of consciousness. This image tends to produce the desire for repetition of the experience which created it and thus to strengthen the kamic principle. The physical body, Sthula Sharira, is the vehicle through which Kama-Manas, the Linga-Sharira and Prana come into contact with the material world. However, the questioner has a lively conscience, as is proved by the honesty of the self- examination and by the sense of dissatisfaction which the question reveals. Buddhi, the spiritual soul, has emerged from the condition of abstract potentiality, though it may be far removed from real self-consciousness. Higher Manas, the power of aspiration, is overshadow¬ ing the lower nature, for otherwise the conscience which is latent in Buddhi could have no means of manifestation. As to the highest principle, Atma, it must be present as the essence of all the other principles; but it is probable that only the highest Masters are self-conscious as Atman. For the ques¬ tioner, as for the rest of us, it is the abstract source of all the aspects of our being. It is the rain \\hich falls upon the just and the unjust. It is the divinity which supports and makes possible the whole series of manifested existences. Therefore, as Aquinas said, even the devil, in so far as he has power, is divine. y g NOTICE OF MEETINGS The regular meetings of the New York Branch of The Theosophical Society are held on alternate Saturday evenings, at 64 Washington Mews, which runs from the east side of Fifth Avenue, midwa> between 8th Street and Washington Square, North. No. 64 is the first studio east of Fifth Avenue, on the north side of the Mews. The meetings begin at half-past eight, and close at ten o’clock. There will be meetings on,— January 5th and 19th February 2nd and 16th March 2nd, 16th and 30th April 13th and 27th (Convention Meeting) May nth and 25th Out-of-town members of the Society are invited to attend these meetings whenever they are in New York. Visitors who may be interested in Theosophy are always welcome. Blavatsky, H. P. Isis Unveiled, Vols, I and II.doth, $10.00 Key to Theosophy .doth, 3 .bo Secret Doctrine, The, Vols. I and II and Index .doth, 20.00 Complete in one book, without subject-index volume, 7.50 Theosophical Glossary .cloth, 3.50 Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge .cloth. 2.50 Voice of the Silence .doth, . 85 , leather, 1.50 Cav 6 , Fragments, Volume I.boards 1.00 Volume II.boaras, 1.00 Volume III.boards, 1.00 Gerard, John. Letters, to Friends .boards, 1.75 Hillard, Katherine. Abridgment of the Secret Doctrine, .doth, 3.00 Johnston, Charles. BHAGAVAD Gita .Translated, annotated; cloth, 1.25 limp leather, 1.75 Crest Jewel of Wisdom, The .doth, 1.25 FROM THE UPANISHADS.paper, .50 Great Upanishads, The, Volume I.doth, 1.50 Parables of the Kingdom, The .paper, .50 PATANJALI’S YOGA Sutras .Translated, annotated; doth, 1.25 Song of Life, The .paper, .75 Judge, William Q. BHAGAVAD Gita .Edited; doth, 1 . 25 | leather, 1.50 Echoes from the Orient .doth, .oo Letters That Have Helped Me, Volume I and II, each, .doth, 1.00 Ocean of Theosophy .doth, 1.00 Patanjali’s Yoga Aphorisms .doth, .75* leather* 1.50 Keightley, Archibald. Theosophy as an Influence in Life paper, .20 LaDow, Stanley V. Plotinus .paper, .50 Mitchell, Henry Bedinger. Meditation, Special edition, .201 paper, .50 Talks on Religion .doth, 1.50 Theosophical Society and Theosophy, The .paper’ .20 Sinnett, A. P. Esoteric Buddhism .doth, 2.50 Occult World, The .doth, 2.50 Walker, E. D. Reincarnation .doth, 1.75 Idyll of the White Lotus.doth, 1.35 Light on the Path.doth, . 75 j leather, 1 . 50 1 lambskin, 1.75 Through the Gates of Gold.doth, 1.20 THE QUARTERLY BOOK DEPARTMENT, P. Q. Box 64, Station O, New York. STANDARD BOOKS Devotional; Bhagavad Gita; Crest Jewd of Wisdom; Fragments; The Great Upani¬ shads; Letters That Have Helped Me; Letters to Friends; Light on the Path; The Par¬ ables of the Kingdom; The Song of Life; Through the Gates of Gold; Voice of the Silence. Philosophical; Abridgment of the Secret Doctrine; Isis Unveiled; Key to Theosophy; Plotinus; Reincarnation; The Secret Doctrine; Talkson Rdigion; Theosophical Glossary; Transactions; Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. Introductory: Culture of Concentration; Echoes from the Orient; Esoteric Buddhism; Idyll of the White Lotus; Meditation; The Occult World; The Ocean of Theosophy; The Theosophical Sodety and Theosophy. THE KNICKERBOCKER PRE88. NEW ROCHELLE, N-Y. <B3je tH3)tos!opi)ical Iboctetp Founded by 15. P. Blaoatsky at new York in IWf l ™lHE Society doe* not pretend to be able to establish at once a universal brotherhood among men, but only strives to create the nucleus ox such a body. _■■■ g Many of its members beUeve that an acquaintance gEM with the world's religions and philosophies will SSSBBSl reveal, the common and fundamental principle «n<fer!vin? these, that "spiritual identity of all Souls with the Oversoul ” which is the basis of true brotherhood J and many of them also believe that an appreciation of the finer forces of nature and man will still further emphasise the same idea. The organisation is wholly unsectarian, with no creeo, dogma, nor personal authority to enforce or impose) neither la it to be held responsible for the opinions of its members, who are expected to accord to the beliefs of others that tolerance which they desire for their own. r The following proclamation was adopted at the Umven tlon of the Society, held at Boston, April, 1895» , "The Theosophical Society in Americaby its delegates and members in Convention assembled, does hereby proclaim fraternal good will and kindly feeling toward all students of Theosophy and members of Theosophical Societies wherever and however situated. It further proclaims and avers its hearty sympathy and association with such persons ana organizations in all theosophical matters except those of government and administration, and invites their cor¬ respondence and co-operation. , "To all men and women of whatever caste,creed,race,or religious belief, who aim at the fostering of peace, gentleness, and unselfish regard one for another, and the acquisition ot such knowledge of men and nature as shall tend to the eleva* tion 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 v. hose efforts are directed to the purification of men's thoughts and the bettering of their ways, and it avows its harmony there¬ with. To all scientific societies and individual searchers atter 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 con¬ firm a scientific basis for eihics. "And lastly, it invites to its membership those who, seek* ing a higher life hereafter, would learn to know the pain to tread in this," Applications for membership should be addressed to the Secretary T, S., P. O. Box 64, Station O, New York, 1 ■; *.t>. .. VOL. XXVI, No. 4 APRIL, 1929 Anpover-H arvard Theological Library Cambridge, mass. PUBLI8HED BY THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY The Theosophical Quarterly Subscription price, $1.00 per annum; single copies 25 cents Published by The Theosophical Society at 64 Washington Mews, New York, N. Y, July; October; January; April Address all communications to P. O. Box 64 , Station O, New York In Europe, single copies may be obtained from and subscriptions may be sent to John M Watkins 21 Cecil Court, Charing Cross Road, London, W. C. 2, England; or to Mr E H. Lincoln, 9 Beaconsfield Road, Low Fell, Gateshead-pn-Tyne, England, from whom all back numbers may be obtained. Annual subscription price, 6s., postpaid. CONTENTS OF VOL. XXVI, NO. 4 April, 1929 PAGE NOTES AND COMMENTS. 291 FRAGMENTS. 300 THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY. 30 i WAR MEMORIES, III. 315 THE CAVE OF THE NYMPHS. 326 THE HAKO: AN INDIAN RITE, PART II. 336 A HINDU CHELA’S DIARY. (Reprint). 346 WHY I JOINED THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. 354 CHHANDOGYA UPANISHAD. 356 ON THE SCREEN OF TIME. 364 REVIEWS. 375 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 379 T. S. ACTIVITIES. 382 INDEX. 383 THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY The principal aim and object of this Society is to form the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste or colour. The subsidiary objects are: The study of ancient and modem religions, philosophies and sciences, and the demonstration of the importance of such study; and the investigation of the unexplained laws of nature and the psychical powers latent in man. Entered as second-class matter September s. 10*3. »t the Post Office at New York, N. Y. f under the Act of March 3. it70« Copyright, 1929, by The Theosophical Society A .-P-tlARVARD Theological Library CAMBRIDGE, MASS. A ' i Yd’j 1 "^7 The Theosophical Quarterly Subscription price, $i.oo per annum; single copies, 25 cents Published by The Theosophical Society at 64 Washington Mews, New York, N. Y. July; October; January; April Address all communications to P. O. Box 64, Station O, New York In Europe, single copies may be obtained from and subscriptions may be: sent to John M Watkins 21 Cecil Court, Charing Cross Road, London, W. C. 2, England, or to Mr E H. Lincoln. 9 Beaconsfield Road. Low Fell. Gateshead-on-Tyne. England, from whom*all back numbers may be obtained. Annual subscription price, 6s., postpaid. r NOTES ^COMMENT L APRIL, 1929 1 he 7 heosopliical Society , as such , is not responsible for any opinion or declaration 'in this magazine , by whomsoever expressed , unless contained in an official document. “For I Desired Mercy, and not Sacrifice” T OWARD the close of the nineteenth century, it was the custom among Occidental students of Buddhism to maintain that the Buddha had not laboured to establish a spiritual religion, but rather a somewhat bleak and arid system of morality, whose essence was negation, and whose inexorable goal was death, complete annihilation of conscious being. It has, perhaps, already been made clear, in these Notes, that Gautama Buddha sought to establish a rich and living spiritual system, the heart of which was a realization of the hierarchy of Masters, above whom was the still higher and more august Celestial Hierarchy, and that the rules of conduct, of meditation and intellectual training, which hold so large a place in the Buddha’s teaching, are precisely the rules of discipleship, a lucid and detailed description of what the disciple must do and learn, in order to draw closer to the Masters of Wisdom, to come consciously within the aura of the Lodge of Masters, to follow in the footsteps of those great Beings, and, if he win full victory* to join their ranks and help to bear their burden. And this has been shown, not from the more transcendental and mystical texts of Northern Buddhism, but from the Pali Suttas of the Southern School, the School of Ceylon and Siam: these most ancient and authentic Buddhist records are “full of the sparkle of esotericism, the heart and essence of that highest Occultism wj^ph our Theosophical studies enable us to recognize. Our studies should have shown us this, and something more. We should have come to understand that the Buddha had clearly in view, and wisely and consistently laboured for, a great moral and spiritual reformation of India; for one reason, because India then represented, and even now represents, an immense investment of spiritual capital, an effort of millenniums by the Lodge of Masters; for many centuries a submerged and buried capital, almost 291 292 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY an investment that has gone astray; yet an investment which the Lodge is bound by spiritual law to recover, though the effort may take centuries. In the “Notes and Comments” for January, 1929, an attempt was made to discover what this spiritual investment was, and through the operation of what forces of human sin and folly it became submerged. It was there suggested that the spiritual history of India was in the main the history of two great and ancient races: the red Rajputs, coming, perhaps, from mystical Egypt; and the white Brahmans, who, at some time a good many millenniums before our era, came down from Central Asia through the high passes of the Himalayas, and, beginning among the Five Rivers which unite to form the Indus, in time spread southward and eastward through the Ganges valley. The red Rajputs, when we get our first view of them, were already in possession of the Greater Mysteries, which are imparted through Initiation; those teach¬ ings which our Western scholars mistakenly think of as the mystical specu¬ lations” of the Great Upanishads; mistakenly, because they are the fruit, not of speculation, but of spiritual experience, of direct vision. The Brah¬ mans, those of the white race who settled in the plains of India, do not appear to have known the Greater Mysteries. Of this, there is twofold evidence: first, the often stated fact that, in the hymns of the Rig Veda, the spiritual heritage of the Brahmans, there is no teaching of Reincarnation and Libera¬ tion, the twin doctrines of the Mysteries; and second, and even more explicit, the statement of the two greatest Upanishads, that these twin doctrines had never reached the Brahmans until they were imparted to the father of Shve- taketu by the Rajput King-Initiate Pravahana; until that time these teachings “had been among all peoples the hereditary teaching of the Rajputs alone.” But the Brahmans had nevertheless a great and exceptional spiritual heredity; their Vedic hymns are full of remote echoes of hidden wisdom, of a teaching which, perhaps, their earliest ancestors had fully and consciously possessed on the high plateaux of Central Asia, unnumbered millenniums before the descent through the snowy passes to the Indian plains. In virtue of this remarkable spiritual heredity the Brahmans, as soon as the Rajputs opened to them the doors of the hidden wisdom, became apt pupils, thence¬ forth supplying many recruits to the Lodge of Masters. As against this credit, two less advantageous factors must be counted. The first is the tendency of the Brahman mind to over-intellectual develop¬ ment, as a result of which much of the practical mysticism of the Rajputs was transformed into fine-drawn metaphysics; the commentaries of the groups of Sutras, for example, are filled with long and subtle disputations, loaded with the contentious reasonings of opposing advocates. What belonged to the spirit and the soul was dragged down to the plane of the mind, and there flattened out into lifeless intellectualism. The second adverse factor had a wider reach. The intellectual “superiority ” of the Brahmans reappeared as ambition, which by degrees sought to domi¬ nate, and did in course of time completely dominate, the whole mental, moral and social life of India, and, to a large degree, also its political life, a domina¬ NOTES AND COMMENTS 293 tion which lasted for millenniums. It would seem that, as an echo of their earlier and fuller spiritual inheritance, the ancestors of the Brahmans, when they entered Northern India, still possessed what one may call a system of practical magic based upon incantation, or the Occult correlations of sound, and on an understanding of personal, mental and psychical “magnetism.” This system they used, from the beginning, to establish their power and influence. .They sought and received rewards from those of the princes who were not Initiates, for the performance of magical ceremonies whose general purpose was to secure success and prosperity by influencing and dominating psychic conditions, by establishing a favourable and positive psychic atmos¬ phere, much as a magnetically gifted orator establishes an ascendency over his audience, largely by using, even though unconsciously, the same Occult powers of the voice, which carries and spreads his personal magnetism. So, in the Upanishads, we find many stories of Brahman practitioners of this magical system of magnetic sound invited by princes to perform ceremonies making for success. And we find that they receive as their reward large herds of cattle, in which, as in other ancient lands, wealth mainly consisted. Many of these earlier ceremonies centred about an altar on which burned a sacred fire, symbol of the Hidden Fire of the Spirit, and personified as the god Agni, Lord of the Sacred Fire, to whom are addressed the first series of hymns of the Rig Veda. Worship of the Hidden Fire, symbolized by an ever-burning sacred flame, is of immemorial antiquity; it goes back to the immensely remote time before a branch of the white Central Asian race made its way to prehis¬ toric Persia, carrying with it the spiritual essence of Zoroastrianism. Thus “sacrifice,” in this earliest period, would appear to have consisted wholly of adoration of the sacred, perpetual fire, into which melted butter was poured as an offering of consecrated fuel, symbolizing the offering of the personal powers to the divine Spiritual Fire, the Logos. There was a second form of rite, namely, the Soma “sacrifice,” with which the Sama Veda is largely concerned. The Soma appears to have been a stimulant, or narcotic, which, by rendering quiescent the physical powers, gave the psychical powers freer play, thus liberating the faculties of clairvoyance and clairaudience, much as these powers may be liberated to-day by the methods of hypnotism. It is true that there was also a “divine Soma,” a genuine spiritual influx, of which the natural Soma became the symbol; yet it seems certain that the physical Soma, the magical narcotic, was widely used in the system of prac¬ tical magic hereditary among the white Brahmans. It may be noted, in passing, that a very similar cult exists to the present day among the remoter pagan tribes who inhabit the high mountains of Western Mexico; they prepare a magical potion from certain kinds of cactus, which they hold sacred, and by its use their magicians induce “prophetic” states, that is, psychical states of clairvoyance and clairaudience. To make the parallel closer, the aboriginal Mexicans have a cycle of immemorial songs or incantations used in these rites only, which may well be compared with the verses of the Sama Veda, chanted by the Brahmans at the Soma sacrifice. 294 theosophical quarterly Besides these two earlier “sacrifices” of ^ i and ^.^mely^the sacrifice ■ r *£ rs would seem that three different motives may be asagn • J’ to vain the goodwill of the supernatural powers for the flocks an offering corresponding to the first fruits of the e s. econ ^ ^ obtain sr s>v ** 2 ^ as it h rest b s e on a t r he n belief that freshly shed blood is a potent aid to '"vocations of ghostly powers, whether human or elemental. It is, me , P Xi^o^LTT^ee motives entered into te***%^£ animal sacrifices by the Brahman priesthood, and it is also’ of svstem of animal sacrifices had prevailed for ages among the darker races; ot Southern India, among whom many forms of black magic, generany associated with mesmeric influences, have always prevailed. Atany' ra ^ that the Brahmans very generally adopted the practice of f animal m^ cnfices as an additional means of extending the despotic power of^ their over the princes and peoples of India. Already m the oldest Upamshads there is much evidence of their success m this effort. When the Buddha began his mission, this system of animal sacntewas firmly established. It need hardly be said that in it his Order, ] g abstain from animal food and from the taking > of Me, could have no part whatever. But it seems clear that the Buddha s plan went far establishment of an Order as a direct recruiting ground for the Lodge H desired also to bring about the redemption of the Brahmans tc.break^up great, tyrannous system of priestcraft, and so to purify the Brahman race that its exceptional qualities and gifts might be turned in the direction of spiritual development and attainment. To gain this end he worked along several lines. First, he made many appeals to the best and highest elemen in the character of the Brahmans, to their ancient, submerged spiritual heredity, and in fact succeeded in winning many disciples from their ranks. How far the Brahmanical minds of these new Buddhists were influential in changing his directly practical teachings into the somewhat wire-drawn dialectics of certain schools of Buddhism, just as earlier Brahmanical minds had metamorphosed the spiritual discipline of the old Rajput schools into controversial philosophical systems, is an interesting subject of inquiry which we cannot at present pursue. - The Buddha made a second attack on Brahman priestcraft by flatly deny- ing at everv opportunity, the claim of the Brahmans to rank above the Rajputs, or kshatriyas, and to hold the highest place among the four great NOTES AND COMMENTS 295 classes of Indian society. The Buddha in general refused to discuss questions of cosmogony, or, indeed, any questions which did not bear immediately on discipleship. It is of immense interest that on almost the only occasion when he did speak of cosmogony, giving an exceedingly interesting account of the development of the early races of mankind in the present world-period, the practical moral to which this cosmogonical teaching was made to lead was the superior rank and antiquity of the Kshatriyas, or Rajputs, and the inferiority of the Brahman priests. So consistently is this purpose carried out that, while in enumerations of the four classes in all Brahmanical books, the Brahmans invariably stand first, this is never the case in the Buddhist scriptures, which as invariably give the precedence to the Kshatriyas. This became such an ingrained habit with the Buddhist recorders that even when they tell of a Brahman enumerating the four classes, they make him yield the first place to the Kshatriya, something which no Brahman would con¬ ceivably have done. Finally, the Buddha threw the great weight of his influence against the whole system of animal sacrifice, which was one of the means through which the Brahman priestcraft riveted its power upon the people. He worked toward this end both by example and by precept. The disciples of his Order were pledged, as we have seen, not to take life. Further, his teaching of Karma, and of Liberation through spiritual effort, ran directly contrary to the Brahmanical system of expiation through the sacrifice of animals; it was the exact equivalent of Paul’s affirmation: “It is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.” The Buddha further faced the problem directly, in a discourse which is recorded in one of the Suttas named after the Brahman Kutadanta, who is the central figure of the episode there related. It is a part of the fine, pervading humour of the Suttas that the name of this distinguished Brahman means “peak-tooth,” as though with reference to his creophagous character. The recorders of the Sutta begin, as always, by painting in a rich Oriental background, against which the leading figures presently come forth, repre¬ sented dramatically, by their own words, rather than descriptively. We are told that the Buddha was journeying through the country of the Magadhas, ac¬ companied by about five hundred disciples, and that, coming to the settlement of Khanumata, he was encamped with his followers in a garden where young mango trees were planted; their deep shade offering a pleasant resting place.^ Now it happened that a part at least of the land of this region, very ferti^ and teeming with life, had been bestowed by the King of the Magadhas, Seniya Bimbisara, on the distinguished Brahman Kutadanta, just as large tracts are granted to Brahmans in Rajputana to-day; the Brahman Kutadanta had succeeded to that extent in establishing himself and acquiring worldly wealth. Perhaps as an act of gratitude, he had formed the design of offering a great sacrifice of animals: seven hundred bulls, seven hundred bullocks, seven hundred heifers, seven hundred goats and seven hundred rams had been assembled, to be slaughtered for the glory of Kutadanta, and many Brahmans 296 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY had gathered together, to take part in the sacrifice, and, we may suppose, in 11 the leavings of the sacrifice,” according to the phrase of the Bhagavad Gita. When the Buddha and his disciples encamped in the mango garden, the fame of his coming went abroad among the people, both the Brahmans and the householders of Khanumata, and they said among themselves: “The ascetic Gotama, in truth, the son of the Sakyas, he who went forth from the Sakya family, has come with many of his disciples and is encamped here in the mango garden. Concerning the Master Gotama fair fame has gone abroad, that this Master is an Arhat, a perfect Buddha, full of wisdom and virtue, a welcome one, teaching the way of salvation to devas and men. He teaches a law of righteousness lovely in its beginning, lovely in its middle, lovely in its consummation. It is good, in truth, to go to see such an Arhat as he!” So the Brahmans and householders of Khanumata went forth in larger and lesser groups toward the mango garden. Now, at this very time it happened that the distinguished Brahman Kuta- danta had mounted to the upper terrace of his dwelling, shaded and cherished by cooling breezes, to enjoy a “day-sleep,” as the Pali phrase goes, and, seeing the groups of Brahmans and householders going past toward the mango garden, he asked his major-domo what this concourse might mean. His major-domo repeated to him what the Brahmans and householders were saying to each other, concerning the coming of the ascetic Gotama and his high spiritual rank. Wisely and logically the Brahman Kutadanta determined within himself that, since he was contemplating a great sacrifice, and since the ascetic Gotama was reputed to be learned concerning sacrifice, it would be well to visit the ascetic Gotama, and to consult him regarding the proper consummation of the threefold sacrifice with its sixteen concomitants. So he sent the major-domo to the Brahmans and householders of Khanumata, who were on their way to the mango garden, asking them to await his coming, for he too desired to visit the ascetic Gotama. So the major-domo carried the message. The recorders of the story, with their love for round numbers, say that several hundred Brahmans had come to be present at the great sacrifice which the Brahman Kutadanta had prepared. When the major-domo brought his message, they asked somewhat incredulously among themselves whether it could be true that the distinguished Brahman Kutadanta was planning to visit the ascetic Gotama. The Brahmans raised their voices in protest, declaring that it was not seemly that the highly distinguished Brahman Kutadanta should visit the ascetic Gotama; a Brahman deeply versed in Vedic lore, a teacher of disciples, a holder of rich lands from the king of the Magadhas, and, withal, a man venerable and full of years. On the contrary, it would be more fitting that the ascetic Gotama, who was a much younger man, should first visit the dis¬ tinguished Brahman Kutadanta. It would seem, then, that this event took place comparatively early in the Buddha’s long mission, while the fact of his relative youth was still very noticeable. NOTES AND COMMENTS 297 But the worthy Kutadanta held to his purpose. The ascetic Gotama was an Arhat, a Buddha, supremely enlightened; moreover neither m birth nor lineage did he at any point yield to the good Brahman himself. So Kutadanta would go, in spite of protests, to visit the ascetic Gotama. So not only did he go, but carried with him the whole Brahmanical company, winning them over to his view. So they all went together to the mango garden and greeted the Master, taking their seats in silence beside him. Then Kutadanta the Brahman spoke thus: “It has been heard by me, Sir Gotama, that the ascetic Gotama knows well the successful conduct of the threefold sacrifice with its sixteen con¬ comitants. But I myself do not know well the successful conduct of the threefold sacrifice with its sixteen concomitants, yet I desire to offer a great sacrifice. It were a fortunate thing for me, if the worthy Gotama would instruct me concerning the successful conduct of the threefold sacrifice. The situation is deeply humorous, and was so felt by every devout Buddhist hearer of the Sutta. That the Master of mercy should be consulted regarding the right method of slaughtering hundreds of bulls and rams, and that, instead of reproaching Kutadanta and condemning the whole proceeding without stint, the Master should appear to give the advice which was asked for, of necessity appealed to the keen sense of humour which runs through these ancient books, a humour whose characteristic is, that it is invariably coupled with a high spiritual purpose. Further, it is profoundly characteristic of the Buddha’s method, that he put himself as far as possible in the position of his questioner, accepted that questioner’s views, and then proceeded, always from the questioner’s standpoint, so to unfold the principles involved, as to bring the questioner gradually to accept the truer, deeper view, to adopt the prin¬ ciples of the Buddha’s teaching. In pursuance of this wise method, the Buddha said nothing to the Brahman Kutadanta regarding the evils of the system of animal sacrifices or the sin of taking life. Instead, he answered with his habitual courtesy: „ “Hear, then, Brahman, paying good heed, and I shall declare the matter. “So be it, Sir!” the Brahman Kutadanta replied. The Master said: “In by-gone days, Brahman, there was a king, Maha-vijita by name, whose kingdom was great, who had much wealth and stored-up gold and silver, with great treasure of wealth and grain, with full treasury and bams. Once, when the king had withdrawn himself in secret, he reflected, thinkinfh^^ possess all the good things a mortal can desire, the wide circle of the eart|« have won for my pleasure. It would be well for me to make a great sacrifice, to gain long life and prosperity!’ And so King Maha-vijita summoned his household priest and told him the thought that had come to him when he was withdrawn into solitude, and of his purpose to make a great sacrifice, securing long life and prosperity, and asking to be instructed as to how the sacrifice should be made to this end. “Thus addressed, the Brahman household priest replied to the king, saying that the king’s realm was disturbed and troubled, beset with highwaymen 298 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY and robbers. Should the king levy a contribution at such a time for a great sacrifice, the king would err. Or should the king determine to visit these evil¬ doers with swift punishment, this also would not avail, for those who escaped would continue as before to do deeds of violence. But there is a better way: not to punish, but to help. Wherever there are those in the king’s realm who are engaged in husbandry, let the king give them seed-corn. Wherever there are those in the king’s realm who are engaged in trading, let the king give them money. Wherever there are those in the king’s realm who are in the king’s service, let the king give them food and payment. Then these men will no longer trouble the peace of the king’s land, the revenues of the king’s realm will increase, the land will enjoy peace, men will rejoice and dandle their sons in their arms, and none in the kingdom will bolt his door. “The king did even so, and all went as the Brahman household priest had said. The revenues of the king’s realm increased, the land enjoyed peace, men rejoiced and dandled their sons in their arms, and none bolted his door. “Then the king summoned the Brahman, his household priest, and said, ‘Tranquility is restored, revenue is increased, contentment reigns. I desire now, Brahman, to make a great sacrifice. Instruct me how this may be done, for long life and prosperity! ’ “Thereupon the Brahman, the household priest, counselled the king to gain the consent of four great classes of his subjects to the sacrifice: first, the Kshatriyas who governed lands under the king; second, the Kshatriyas who were ministers in the king’s service; third, the Brahmans of distinction, whether in the country or in the cities; fourth, the rich householders, whether in the country or in the cities. The king sought their consent, and all gladly gave it. Thus all these classes were made partakers of the sacrifice.” Then the Buddha enumerated eight virtues, eight gifts and graces which the king possessed, and in like manner four virtues possessed by the Brahman, the household priest. These twelve gifts, together with the consent of the four classes, making sixteen in all, became the sixteen concomitants of the sacrifice. And further, a generous attitude of the king’s mind, thrice repeated, completed the threefold nature of the sacrifice, according to the traditional rule. The Buddha continued: “At that sacrifice, verily, Brahman, no cattle were slain, nor any goats, nor fowl, nor swine, nor was any living thing deprived of life; no trees were felled, nor was sacred grass cut to strew upon the ground; nor was any compulsion used upon those who helped. Only clarified butter, oil, fresh butter, curds, honey and the juice of sugar-cane were offered in making that sacrifice.” Many beneficent results followed in that ancient realm. And among those who heard the Buddha, the results were not less happy. All the Brahmans applauded, saying, That was a true sacrifice! That was a successful sacrifice!” All, indeed, applauded excepting only Kutadanta. Then the Brahmans who had come with him asked him whether he did not approve. Kutadanta replied: “I do not withhold approval from what the ascetic Gotama has said, NOTES AND COMMENTS 299 but this thought came to me: ‘The ascetic Gotama does not say, “Thus did I hear,” nor does he say, “Thus should it be!” The ascetic Gotama says instead, “Thus it was.”’ Therefore I thought within myself, ‘Of a truth the ascetic Gotama was at that time the king, or the Brahman, the household priest!’” The Buddha answered that he was the priest. Thereupon Kutadanta asked whether there might not be some better, higher sacrifice, noble though that ancient sacrifice had been. And in answer the Buddha revealed to Kutadanta the path of discipleship, as the true offering. Kutadanta was completely won, and straightway sought and gained admission to the Master’s Order. There remains the practical outcome of the story. The Brahman Kutadanta countermanded the great sacrifice that he had planned, and gave orders that the cattle and sheep and goats he had assembled should be spared, and should live their lives in peace. In that instance, at any rate, the sacrifice of animals came to an end. Concerning the larger results of this teaching, it may be profitable to quote what Professor T. W. Rhys Davids wrote, a good many years ago, concerning this Sutta: “On this question, as on the question of caste or social privileges, the early Buddhists took up, and pushed to its logical conclusions, a rational view held by others. And on this question of sacrifice their party won. The Vedic sacrifices, of animals, had practically been given up when the long struggle between Brahmanism and Buddhism reached its close. Isolated instances of such sacrifices are known even down to the Muhammadan invasion. But the battle was really won by the Buddhists and their allies. And the com¬ bined ridicule and earnestness of our Sutta will have had its share in bringing about the victory.” This is, perhaps, too optimistic; for it is certain that the sacrifice of animals, under Brahman auspices, lingers in India to-day, for example, at Kalighat. Further, it is worth noting that the sacrifice of the story, which met with such hearty approval from the Buddha’s listeners, namely, the pouring of melted butter or oil into the consecrated fire, was more truly the original Vedic sacri¬ fice, as contrasted with the sacrifice of animals, which was probably taken over from the dark races of Southern India. Finally, Rhys Davids speaks of the long struggle between Brahmanism and Buddhism coming to an end. We should remember that it ended in the con^ plete defeat of the Buddhists, and in their violent expulsion from India, a violence whose heavy Karma still weighs on that afflicted land. Brahman priestcraft was completely triumphant. Though the Buddha may have won the lesser victory, the partial abolition of animal sacrifices, he failed in the great heroic effort, the spiritual redemption of the whole Brahman order with its rich possibilities for good. There have been, and are, many noble and pure-hearted Brahmans; nevertheless, the Brahman order, as a whole, remains a tyrannous and ambitious priestcraft, the greatest barrier to the spiritual regeneration of India. FRAGMENTS S ILENTLY they come to us across the twilight spaces—intimations of the spiritual world, dim memories of the past, whispers also out of the future. Silently they come, like lines of golden light upon a sunset lawn; lengthening as they reach us, we of the shadows; creeping toward us, closer and closer as we watch and wonder, until they touch us, touch our feet, our faces, then reach and touch our hearts. What do we do with them then, when we are conscious of that magical touch, when the sweet pain of its yearning sweeps over us? Are we fright¬ ened? Do we find unbearable that stab and quiver, that sense of something strange, that force which holds and compels? Do we struggle to get free of it, to awaken into the understood and wonted? Yes, many times, alas; but God is patient; and the experience returns again and again, with its wealth of opportunity, returns with added reproach and beseeching, with an invi¬ tation from which, perhaps, once more we fly. Yet there it lies across our lives, like golden light across a sunset lawn; and however we turn we cannot forget; however much we deepen our shadows, there remains the memory of that tender glory with all its poignancy of long¬ ing and regret. Some day we shall not deny it; trembling, it may be, but with hope, we shall yield to its embraces. Then we shall have found heaven upon earth, heaven here and beyond: then we shall live in the radiance of union with the Master. Cave. 300 THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY' I HAVE been asked to speak to you to-night upon those recent advances in the field of physics which are revolutionizing the scientific view of the physical universe, and which, as formulated in Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, have been given wide notoriety—though little intelligibility- through the public press. It is a theme which is of special interest to students of Theosophy for two reasons. First, because the break-down of the old, accepted theories, and the nature of the new, both confirm, to a remarkable degree, the contentions of Madame Blavatsky as set forth fifty years ago in Isis Unveiled , and later in The Secret Doctrine ,* and, second, because it offers an opportunity to make clear the answer to a question which is, perhaps, not often asked explicitly, but which must, none the less, be present in many minds. This question is why we of the Society do not throw more of our weight and effort into the furthering of modern scientific research, but rather seem to hold back from it, though it is so patently pressing toward the very truths which Theosophy has proclaimed and of which the Society was, at one time, almost the only champion in the Western world. The answer is, that knowledge of outer things which is not based upon knowledge of inner things, knowledge which is gained from any other standpoint than that of spiritual reality, must always be deceptive; and intellectual attainment, not rooted in moral attainment, must ultimately act to its possessor’s undoing. It was through this unbalancing of man’s nature that the great civilizations of the past were destroyed, and the same causes must act always to the same end. Truth, to be truth, must be universal, and knowledge which is sought and found only on the plane of the intellect is thus robbed of that which makes it true. The more accurate such knowledge is, the greater its achievement, its appeal and glamour, the more dangerous it becomes in ensnaring and hold¬ ing man in the shadow-land of illusion, concealing from him that it is illusion, through its reference of shadows only to shadows, and thus shutting him out from the causal world of the real,—the spiritual world, which alone enables him to rise above the merely relative and temporal, and where, only, he can realize his true being. I hope that I may be able to return to this question and answer, and to consider the bearing of these new scientific views upon the theosophical phil¬ osophy and attitude, but whether it will be possible to do so this evening, oH whether it must be postponed to another meeting, I do not know; for I have first the task of attempting to give an intelligible outline of the new theories, and of making clear the change that they require in the habitual concept of the physical world. The readjustments demanded are radical, and at first * From the stenographic notes of an address before the New York Branch of The Theosophical Society February i6th, 1929. 301 302 THE 0 S 0 PHICAL QUARTERLY seem very strange, so that the task is one of no small difficulty. That I am able to undertake it at all is in large part due to the brilliant expository genius of Professor A. S. Eddington, Plumian Professor of Astronomy in the Uni¬ versity of Cambridge, from whose work I shall draw freely. Though his technical Report on the Relativity Theory of Gravitation requires more than usual mathematical knowledge, his two popular books upon the subject Space , Time and Gravitation , published in 1923, and The Nature of the Physical World, which has just appeared in book form, embodying the series of Gifford Lectures he delivered in the University of Edinburgh in 1927—can be read by anyone who is really interested in the subject. Revolutionary as is the change in view which the Theory of Relativity asks of us, it is not without precedent. It is directly comparable to that involved in ceasing to think of the earth as fixed and flat, and conceiving it, instead, as a globe in very rapid motion. It is comparable in its difficulties and paradoxes, in its causes, and in its results. How great these difficulties were we do not now often pause to recall, though I fancy most of us encoun¬ tered some of them in our own childhood when we thought of the antipodes. Lactantius, a contemporary of Constantine and a man of no mean intellectual ability, reflects the attitude of his time towards those who maintained the sphericity of the earth and that people might live upon its other side. “How can there be anyone so absurd,” he says in the Divina Institutions , “as to think that men can have their feet higher than their heads; or that in those parts of the earth, instead of resting on the ground, things hang down; crops and trees grow downward; rain, snow and hail fall upward onto the earth? Who indeed can wonder at the hanging gardens, which are reckoned as one of the seven wonders, when the philosophers would have us believe in hanging fields and cities, seas and mountains? ... If you ask those who maintain these monstrous notions why everything does not fall off into the heavens on that side, they reply that it is of the nature of things that all objects having weight are borne toward the centre, and that everything is connected with the centre, like the spokes of a wheel; while light things, like clouds, smoke and fire, are borne away from the centre and seek the heavens. I scarce know what to say of such fellows who, when once they have wandered from truth, persevere in their foolishness and defend their absurdities by new absurdities. Sometimes I imagine that their philosophizing is all a joke, or that they know the truth well enough and only defend these lies in a per¬ verse attempt to exhibit and exercise their wit.” That is quite the tone and temper of many lay discussions of the modern Relativity Theory. It is the paradoxes which strike us first, and upon which we are most tempted to dwell; but that is not the way in which we can come most quickly to some understanding of the theory itself. For this we must look to what can be said in its favour, rather than in disfavour, and consider the reasons which have led to its adoption. These reasons are, as I have suggested, comparable to those of which Lactantius was so scornful, and to those which later led to the abandonment of the old Ptolemaic system in the THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY 303 triumph of Galileo and Copernicus. Though it is not the usual method of approach, I believe we can come to the heart of the matter most easily bv making use of these parallels. For the sphericity of the earth, there were good observational reasons,— not apparent in small areas of the earth’s surface, but becoming evident when observations at distant points were compared. So far as we can go back in the history of astronomy, we find that the shape of the earth was known to the learned, though not popularly accepted. It was as correctly given in the Ptolemaic as in the Copemican system. For the theory that the earth revolved around the sun, however, there was no observational or experimental evidence whatever. On the contrary, the evidence of the senses was all against it. One could see the sun rise and set; the stars circle through the night, their motion known through the ages, charted and predictable. Coper¬ nicus had to overthrow this evidence of the senses, and to point out that in the very nature of things no one could tell from observation whether it was the earth or the heavens which moved. All one could say was that they moved m relation to each other. Here he took his stand upon the first principle of Relativity, and challenged his opponents to overthrow him. Of course it supported his view no more than it did theirs, but it nullified the advantage they had had and the evidence on which they had relied. It left a fair field for either theory, so that what actually determined the adoption of the Coper- mean system was the greater simplicity of the motions it assumed, and the relative ease of mathematical calculation,—these, and the feeling which we all have, but which is often erroneous, that the simpler is the more probable. It seemed far more probable and simple to suppose that the earth was turn¬ ing on its axis than that all the heavens were revolving around it; and by assum¬ ing that it revolved around the sun, the complicated epicycloids of the apparent motion of the planets could be reduced to simple circles or ellipses. It was then simplicity, and only simplicity, that led us to the theory that the earth moved round the sun, instead of the sun moving round the earth. In all other ways the system of Ptolemy was as accurate, as successful in predicting events, as that of Copernicus,—and was far more closely in accord with the familiar appearance of things; for to trace the motion of the stars as we see them, we have still to translate back from Copernicus to Ptolemy. But what if the sun itself be also moving? Let us think for a moment of the way in which motions compound. We are on a train; when, as Eddington says, we look out of the window and see a cow gliding past at fifty miles an hour, “we remark that the creature is enjoying a rest.” The train draws out from the depot; we walk back along the aisle, moving with regard to the train, but, for a time, keeping abreast of the same point in the platform. The platform itself is moving with the motion of the earth, turning around the earth’s axis, hurtling through space around the sun; and there is no reason to assume that the sun itself is at rest. What is at rest? What is our actual motion? May all these different motions actually nullify one another? Is there any means of telling? 304 THE 0 S 0 PHICAL QUARTERLY This is the question that Michelson and Morley asked themselves forty years ago, and thought that they had found a way to answer it. It is a well known fact, easily proved by arithmetical calculation or experiment, that it takes less time to swim a hundred yards across the current of a river and back, than it does to swim a hundred yards up or down stream and back. You go through more water, in that sense your course is longer, in the latter case than in the former. If then, as science supposes, the earth is moving through the aether like a boat through the water, or, what is the same thing, if the aether be flowing past the earth, it should take a swimmer in the aether longer to go a given distance and back in the direction of the earth’s motion, than to go the same distance and back at right angles to that motion. Michel¬ son and Morley performed this experiment of racing two beams of light, as swimmers in the aether, to distant mirrors and back over courses at right angles to each other. They confidently expected that one would return before the other, and that so the direction of the earth’s motion through the aether would be determined. Greatly to their surprise the result was a dead-heat. They turned the apparatus around and tried it again, but with the same result. The two rays returned at the same time. They waited six months, so that the earth’s motion around the sun should have reversed its direction; but again there was a tie. This negative result appeared to contradict all theory and experience. Two equal runners are set unequal courses, yet return at the same time. How explain the contradiction? For a while there was no explanation. If we can imagine that Ptolemy and Copernicus were watching the experiment, it may be supposed that Ptolemy would have had his revenge; for if the race appeared to prove any¬ thing, it seemed to prove that the earth was at rest in the aether,—that Coper¬ nicus was wrong and that Ptolemy had been right. But by this time the concept of the earth’s motion has been too closely interwoven into the whole fabric of science to be easily extricated, and, so far as I know, the possibility was never even suggested. The negative results of the Michelson-Morley experiment, and of others which confirmed them, remained a mystery until FitzGerald advanced the theory that our ideas and measurements of length were themselves dependent upon motion, and that the handicap which it had been thought had been imposed upon one of the two beams of light was therefore illusory. It had been made to travel more miles, but each “mile” had been shortened. This at first seems a very wild assumption, but we must remember that all our measurements of length are ultimately equivalent to measurements with a foot rule or yard stick—the application of a rigid rod, end to end over the distance to be measured,—and so depend upon the assumption that that rigid rod maintains the same length. Now we know that certain things, tempera¬ ture for instance, change the length of the rod. The length of the rod repre¬ sents, in the scientific view, a balance between the forces drawing its particles together, and the motions which tend to keep them apart. To increase the temperature is to increase the motions, and so to lengthen the rod. This is THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY 305 understood and allowed for, the length of the rod being “corrected” for tem¬ perature. But it had not occurred to anyone, before, that a similar allow¬ ance might have to be made for any increase in the forces drawing the par¬ ticles together. These forces are of an electro-magnetic character. The particles are charged with electricity, and when an electric charge is set in motion it generates a magnetic field, or force. This magnetic force acts to draw the particles closer together in the direction of the motion given to the rod, so that when it is moved in the direction of its length, it becomes shorter than when it is moved at right angles to its length. For small velocities the contraction is negligible, but for large velocities it is by no means negligible. Calculated theoretically, upon the basis of Maxwell’s electro-magnetic laws, it is found to be exactly what is required to account for the result of the Michelson-Morley experiment. The increased number of metres, which had to be traversed by the ray in the direction of the earth’s motion, was exactly balanced by the shortening of each metre along that course. This introduces us into Alice in Wonderland. As I point my walking stick in one direction or another its length changes. I turn my body and grow thin and broad, or deep of chest and narrow of shoulder. I lie down on a bed with my head to the north and am of different length than when I sleep with my head to the east. Why do we not notice it? Because everything keeps the same scale, the same appearance, and so the fact is concealed from us, at least this is the explanation that Relativists ask us to accept. But as they point out that all motion is relative, the effects of motion must also be relative, and therefore would only exist for an observer with respect to whom we were in rapid motion, as we are not in respect to one another. The result would, we are to suppose, be very noticeable to some observer on another planet, or to the consciousness of a “beta” particle shooting by us at something less than the speed of light. But to ourselves, our own motion, and the effects which it may produce, cannot be apparent. One effect must always neutralize another. This is what has been called the first or restricted Principle of Rela¬ tivity: “It is impossible by any experiment to detect uniform motion relative to the aether.” Indeed, if we try to think of what motion through a perfectly continuous and homogeneous medium might mean to us, we shall find the idea replete with difficulties. We can think of motion through water, because we con¬ ceive of water as composed of particles. We leave one particle behind and come to another. But we cannot do this if there be no particles—if all be homogeneous and continuous. As Madame Blavatsky long since pointed out. the scientific conception of the aether is a congeries of mutually con¬ tradictory properties, and science to-day confesses this. It is a highly illogical conception, though it has been a useful one; and there is every indication that it must be revised—as Madame Blavatsky contended. The General Relativity Theory—as distinct from the first, restricted theory —may be approached, not through the motion of the earth, but through its sphericity; for this theory has, as one of its first and most important results, 3o6 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY to find out what that invokes b ^ ** CUrVed ’ . not as flat We want ment to the ordinary man Let^r tlf ^ 3 unint elligible state * “ordinary man,” who int h e oaS t, ^ ^ C ° nSlder the P osition of the he “ ve of iKand see wh - was really thought of ^e^endint 3 *' i” 1 -* 1 ? primit ' ve conception, the earth directions in which men were frl ? 7 “ dl mensions,-i n the horizontal irregularities). As we have said wet™ 0 '" 6 ar0Und (mountains being mere the conception of the learned but it n ° tlme n blstory when this was man. A third dimension was of eo ^ PraCtlCaI notion of the ordinary direction; but this was no tTJ, ^ to . him ’ the U P a "d down surface extension, but rather with “ HlS mind with the idea of of the turtle, or the^shoufdijT d °™ to the ba ck concerned. He knew about " but d regard TV**"? ? *“*^ y do, in order to understand the views JfZ , , firSt thm g he bad to disregarded dimension and to add it to th * fiT**’ Was to & ve hee d to this away, for the time being from the mem J Z tW °’ tUming his a ttention Its solid substance as extending in ,11!^ ° f the earth ' and thinking of had done this, and had the sS in his mtdl 1 *°™ “ Whe/he for it m any way he chose, and the “scientific” 6 ’ ^ ^ * SUrface was a spherical one, was no longer difficult of T * the true surface thought of as a plane simnlv curved ! comprehension. What he had been neglecting. P 7 CUrVed ar0Und th ™g b the dimension he had one step higher up^ We WbeerthS^ 8 7 ^ t0 SpaCe itself ' but embracing north and south east and f g ° extension as three-dimensional, nizant of another We, too, are cog! connection with the extension of space-^ffiv a 7 th ° Ught of « space, duration in time. We have to nut all h S f sort . of "thickness” of and think of duration in space, “space-time ” ^ ° U f d ' mens 'ons together, our idea of extension a four-fold thine whom’ ^ 3 S ' ng e wbole . thus making This is, of course, a very familiar L \ n ° W 11 ' S generall y but three-fold ame Blavatsky pre ente h ? Pt t0 Students of Theosophy Mad 1. oven" 17ZIZ S"”" 8 * ^ S ‘"« ^ id solely of what is seen at any particular m o^Tk " ^ d ° 6S not consist Of all its various and changing conditions f “'•l bUt * S com P osed of the sum fonn to its disappearance from the earth Us app ® arance in the material from eternity in the 'future’ and pass bv dir gf® SUm t0tals ’ tbat exist eternity in the ‘past ’. No one would sL E T™? matter to exist for the sea came into existence as it left the ah- an/ 7 m6tal dropped in to the water, and that the bar itself consisted onh, T/I^ t0 6Xlst as k en tered w uch at any given moment coincided with H ° f ^ cross ' secti °n thereof separates, and at the same time joins the a L , mathemati c a l plane that " of perso ” ” d ,hi -— r- u °n, as ]t were . Of their total selves as fC V ° Ur senses a cross- (as matter) on their way from one e ter ffitvJ thr ° Ugh time *nd space that duration ’ in which alone anvthin/h . n ° ther : and these two constitute but able to cognize it there” (TheSecret Dor/™ eX ’ Stence - were °ur senses to us in a ’t °°y ***' Jt is present imagine that each page of {he hL° 7 * Washm £t°n, let us sav. We can Washington, and • ■**« or an aocoun, “ "» life, as it were, i„,„ , s„“ “ „ ' ; “ C "“"" *»e, stratifying book illustrate our ordinlry no, ^T[“ Th °“ « thl certain condition of .Hairs, here and now j 1 *™ 1 “'«Mce. Here is a »stmg At anothei ZZt thl i, T T *" sp *“ relations. We have stratified our life ffit^TsucceTsio an f ° ther S6t ° f Space relations.’ leaves of the book stratify the life of Geor , ,T' States J ust as the book as a whole that is his biography and Z But ft is tb e arbitrary. We can conceive of it as IiavL K stratlfi cat.on is artificial and stratified, in a very different way Oeome wTsh ! VVr ' tten ' 3nd consequently as mystic. The temporal sequent nfed^fb^K ^ as s ^n across m many ways, once we have before us uTf' bUt may be cut is this whole, unified life, that it iTim™? ! Wh ° le We of the man. It We shall see more clearly the real mT h t0 KraSp ' So Eddington says r,d „.r minds of this i.luCn ™ S ”'™ " we eS revealed, though strangely unfamiliar T Z , W ° rld that the n stands a difference between simplicity and familiarity A SimP ' er ‘ There is to us in the form of rashers, but the unst at ed P ' S may be m ° St familia r biologist who wishes to understand how he a ffi H If “ Slmp,er ° b i e ct to the We may see from this how, once vve have " ' fUnCti ° nS ’” may recarve them in new forms no on! P “ Sp3Ce and time together, we would correspond to curved surfaces -sp"'" at - StratlfiCati ° nS ’ but in what dimension of time. We may see too that 35 14 Were ’ thr °ugh the many different ways- so that what ’ h Sh ° U,d be possible do this in -5ft •* —• -w s: rigidly fixed and the same for all under all cond't m ° n ° f time is not to us m the thought that Washington’s life af TherC 15 nothin S new at a very different pace and in a dfrection diff T, ° haVe pr °ceeded householder; or that those who apmS -?h his life as soldier or bun by different standards and malk his prot^ Sh ° Uld measure of events. Men are for eve^mcasu' Pr0gr f S by a diffe rent time-sequence judgments tell us as much about them a! ah !,l t by themse lves, and their ”° l ” ew ’ bdl is -~ have S: J-■: THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY Aft „ all time, as distinct from dura- what we can do even with t e ou el \ recur ri' n g phenomena. We measure tion, depends .pen the law ot cy «.^ ^ by the phases of the it by things which recur: by »”'«»“ p pendu , um and the revolut.ons moon, 'by days and years by the beating of a pen ^ ^ hang toge ther of the hands of a clock, measured by our pulse does as well as they do. It is perfectly patent tha ^ ^ does ^ time of 0 ur not always agree with that “^Naval-Observatory time. It has been the inner experience always pbe w her slig htingly of the time of inner habit of “the ordinary man to’ ^ and relative; but science is now experience, as something pu e observatory time that is “relative", assuring him that it is really theOb i explicitly remind you We must come now to gravit . j am doing my best of what I sincerely hope, you have^hs^ all along.^ ^ f and to present a definite scien fi tions; but these confirmations do no has received very striking t ions and as it stands, and as I shall prove that it is correct in all its assutnp^ ^ ^ q{ The0 sophy. In certain try to portray it, it is neither my f the classic form of Newton s particulars, notably in its abandonm f contentions; but m U it is in accord with some of Madanrn B ^ ^ ^ gi lts others it does not accord. . Einste i n has announced an extension final form. Within the past month, that others wiU follow, and modification, and there Y ^ a comparison with that which We can again approach out' P was thou ght of as flat, gravitation faced our predecessors. When ^ ^ fall down if they were not held could be stated very simply, th g accord with experience; every- up . It was simple, universal and in per wag {ound to be a sphere, body knew and understood it. Bu ^ simple to fit the facts. Either it was obvious that this simp wbat was meant by “down things fell “up” on the other side of the ea ^ same every- had to be redefined, and instead of be ^ ^ & merely re i at ive and local where and for all things, down h dt b earth - s surface, different, too thing, different at every f ffe "ent p o the mean i ng from a spacial at every different moment of ^™g£ b j ag dependent upon matter-a pointer or geometrical concept to someth g 1 where ver the earth was and directed to matter, to the centredthe earth M a univer sal wherever the pointer was. Gravitation n ^ ^ moye in empty space and uniform law, describing bance 0 f the uniform condition, due tjfc but as a local phenomenon « ach ievement was, of cour# the influence of the earth. Newton s g all ma tter, not only that he conceived a s ? mllal 'd’^ ur “ a ° itation something of the generality it by the earth; and this restored to g t ^ restore all of that generality 55S^" r : 308 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY nize that these differences, and dependence of the judgment on the judge, have their direct correspondences in the physical world; and that the most material properties of “inanimate” bodies, their mass and energy, their size and shape, their presence in the “past” or “future” all those qualities which seemed most constant and independent of the personal colouring of our con¬ sciousness—are relative, and vary with the motion of the beholder, though this beholder be but a mechanical, scientific instrument in a laboratory. Science, it is true, has not yet recognized that this relativity and mutability of the outer world is but the reflection of the richness and depth of the inner world—and therein lies our quarrel with science; but it has at least begun to recognize that the outer world has no permanence and definiteness of its own; that it is but a shadow-land of shifting symbols. We said, a moment ago, that what is merely time for one man may be a mingling of time and space for another. Professor Eddington illustrates this by a clock striking the hours. Our clock here has just struck nine; an hour from now it will strike again; and for us these will be two events which, occur¬ ring in the same place, were separated only in time, an hour apart. But for an observer on the sun, if we imagine him to see the fall of the hammers, the two events would not have occurred in the same place, but about seventy thousand miles apart, for that is approximately the distance that the earth travels in an hour on its orbit around the sun. When we speak of a “distant event,” we may mean “distant” in space, or in time, or in both, for both separate events. The Relativist, seeking greater definiteness, speaks of the “interval” between two events, this interval being made up of two com¬ ponents, one of space and one of time. Its measurement is a matter of the geometry of space-time; but, as we have just seen, each of its two components is relative, and different observers, in different states of motion, would divide them up differently. This opens a very fruitful field of paradox, where it would be amusing and interesting to linger, if we had not so much else claim¬ ing our attention. But as it is, we must seek the simplest view, and this is perhaps offered by the analogy that we used before. When our predecessors began to think of the earth as a sphere, they had to realize that what were “horizontal” and “vertical” for a man in one latitude were quite different from what they were at another. Between the pole and the equator they would be completely reversed. At the equator the North Star would be on the horizon; at the pole it would be directly overhead. This may make it seem less extraordinary that space and time should be relative in the same way. But there is a real difference between them, just as there is a real difference between horizontal and vertical, a difference that we cannot ignore. As the force of gravity acts vertically, not horizontally, upon us, so time acts on us as space does not. Though we put time and space together into a single whole, it does not mean that they may therefore be indiscriminately confused and recarved in any way. Our notion of time is really dual. There is an inner time and an outer time, and we cannot take the liberties with the inner that we can with the outer. As the two are not unrelated, there are limits to 3 io theosophical quarterl ^ I • fall vertically downward,’ tmdhg^ifZft'to th^ *f“ everythin g tending to ■nes perpendicular to the flat surface on wh t'T*' t0 m ° Ve in P"®Uel these parallel lines were all taken awav and ^ ^ In the new theory from every centre of matter and criss crossin ^ ^ Star ‘ rays ' -bating >ng and inextricable manner. Instead of a « an °? her ln a mos t bewilder- the crystal globes of the heavens ma^'est „ % rule d space, across which spotty space, each dot pulling against *‘ 1CalIy *: evolved - he had a dotted and itself whatever its influence coufd reach d ° l and trying to draw to «re, as the plain man must have seen it. mS 3 m ° St unattra ctive pic- formulated his firstTwof^lon ’'“Tu “ Newton ’ s when he uniform motion in a straight line, except ^ ‘° remain at rest or haTT th j at State by an ext emal force ” But°tl ^ ey 3re com P e Hed to had abandoned the idea of a fixed fl a f ® ut the trouble was that, once we b ° dieS tmded t0 move straights ‘ "" PerfeCtIy apparent that, that did arf« a //y so move. Nor coulfweTT ’ We C ° Uld find no body Therefore, if Newton’s law of motion ™ , bnd any that remained at rest acted upon by an external force. The ever ^ *7°' b ° dy must alwa y s be t nr -ssr*: !ac,iv ' ,ora ' the teacher says, tends to move'Va staSr 4 *” 8 reaSOning ' Everything We throw a stone, and it does not inoveTn a r ^ H ° W d ° We ka ™ thS comments, that is because gravity £,ib i d ^ Yes - the teacher Fmllsit down? Because if gravity <1* not Sone ,J° We kn °w gravity is £ th^tgrsOcular,. , h ; o„,;tp* St ' aieh * “ nC ! Usi0n : ll 'M this univer™r m ”“"® f ‘N T' ° ut SToS . P “* d human „j„ d for ^ which ha' d,r.ct Mion „ , dis ■« could „ pIa , n ?*“" '". lhe iutervening medium w,th “ t contradictions, as a X” ioL'tr"'•-■ Msiz? r eihi ” E •he ma,hematic °‘ bodies (hke people) really want to° vo ddlngton remar ks, the suggestioiTthat »~?o sr* * to move differentlv ; J“* ° Ve m straight lines but y ’ theref °re, 5 ° of spuce-time (for ,i me „ ust THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY 3ii be involved as well as space) would account for this, so that bodies should tend to move as they do move. The question may admit of more than one answer. Basing his work upon that of Minkowski, and approaching the problem as one of pure mathematics, Einstein has found several different solutions. Though differing in detail, however, they are all of the same char¬ acter, and have successively “explained” geometrically a widening range of physical phenomena. As a result, gravitation was first identified with inertia, and, within the last few weeks, with electro-magnetic phenomena as well,— as Madame Blavatsky always said it should be. The mathematics cannot concern us here, and our imaginations do not function very easily in the four-dimensional space-time with which the mathematics deals. But if we content ourselves with trying to draw a sort of two-dimensional picture, representing space as a surface, it is not hard to form a rough idea of what that surface should be like. In the first place, it must be curved,—not flat; and, where there is no matter, this curvature must be smooth and uniform. But wherever there is matter, there must be a hummock, or hill, breaking the smooth curvature. If you tried to walk across such a surface, these hummocks would deflect your course, and your path in their vicinity would have a different curvature. Relativity theory, therefore, returns to a geomet¬ rical picture of gravitation; but instead of the flat space and ruled vertical lines of the primitive picture, it has a curved, hummocky space, and curved lines, and it contends that the Newtonian conception was the result of trying to force this curved, hummocky surface to lie flat on a plane. This has been illustrated by the distortion that inevitably appears when¬ ever we try to draw a flat map of a considerable portion of the earth’s surface. For small areas, the distortion is negligible; but for large areas, if we preserve one feature, we inevitably distort some other. Most maps are drawn so as to preserve direction: that is, the north and south lines run parallel up and down the page. Now on the surface of the earth itself these lines are parallel at the equator, but all come together at the pole. On the map they are kept parallel, and the consequence is that a little circle around the pole is stretched out to the size of the equator, and all the northern regions are absurdly exag¬ gerated in size. Professor Eddington asks us to imagine how this would be interpreted by some ancient inhabitant of Greece, let us say, who adhered to the flat-earth theory and had found that flat maps represented quite correctly his own familiar country. He would naturally assume that they were equally correct in their representation of Greenland, and that the distances sho«n in his map were the true distances. But if he were to travel in GreenlWa, he would find that these distances certainly seemed much shorter than they “really” were as given on his scientific map. He would find that he walked very much faster in Greenland than in Greece, and was able to travel in a day what would have taken him weeks at home. How would he explain this? Professor Eddington suggests that if he were an ordinary man of his time, he would suppose that there was a demon living in Greenland who helped travellers on their way; but that if he were a scientist he would “invent a 312 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY Grasco-Latin polysyllable” to denote the mysterious force or agency which made the journeys seem so short. Relativity exorcises the demon of gravita¬ tion by pointing out the curvature of the physical world. When we put together time and space into a single whole, it is necessary to devise some common measure, or means of comparing distances in time with distances in space. In Relativity theory this is done through the velocity of light, which is about 186,000 miles a second, so that one second of time, what seems to us a very short period of time, corresponds to 186,000 miles, which seems to most of us, who are not astronomers, a fairly long distance in space. If we try to imagine what a single second of our bodily existence would look like in space-time, we must see it as very small—no more than a few feet in the space directions, but as stretching out 186,000 miles in the time direction. When we realize that to picture our whole physical life, from birth to death, we should have to multiply this length by the number of seconds our life lasts, we reach an idea in rather startling contrast to our ordinary notion that “life is short”. It has been likened to an earth worm; but it is a very thin and very elongated earth worm. It is often called our “world¬ line” stretching through time and space. Every physical body can be so represented. This affords us another way of illustrating gravitation geometrically. As we did before with space alone, let us now try to imagine a surface model of space-time. We shall have to condense all three dimensions of space into one, representing extension in space by distances measured along one edge of this table top, and extension in time by distances measured along the other edge at right angles to the first. The table cover, lying flat, would then serve to represent a flat space-time, in regions where there was no matter. Now let us try to introduce the picture of two material bodies in that space-time We can do this by making two ridges or wrinkles in the table cover, taking care to keep the rest of the cover smooth. As we trace their course, running back from the front edge of the table (along the time direction), these wrinkles may approach or diverge, just as any two bodies may approach or diverge Of specia 1 interest to us, however, is the fact that they can run parallel This is in flat space-time. But, Professor Eddington points out, if we try to make two similar puckers or wrinkles in a cloth lying on a curved instead and t 3 k 6 SU 1r ^ Sh f al ‘ find that il is not 50 eas y t0 make them run parallel ,, 1 , kL 7 P ., he rest . ofthe cloth smooth. My coat sleeve wrinkles at the ti^tSTtor^ do not mn paraiiei: they run together - ** - J ? I" T Ut6S ' eft ° f the h ° Ur generousI y allowed me, and despite demoted ?f! / P™ 63 *“ t0 ° sh ° rt for even the bare outline I have attempted. I have, of course, had to omit far more than I could suggest- particular y I have slighted the paradoxes with which Relativity Theofv is replete. It is these which are usually dwelt upon when Relativity is discussed • but it seems to me that if they are introduced before the central ideas are grasped, they tend to obscure rather than to clarify the subject. Therefore, THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY 313 I have deliberately omitted them. There are, however, certain conclusions to which the theory leads, that I ought not to omit, though I can do no mo e than note them,-since an adequate discussion of any one would requ re an evening in itself. As you hear them, they will remind you of familiar tenets of Theosophy, and it is distinctly interesting that they should now be advanced by a growing school of modern science as revolutionary discoveries. Once more I must remind you that they are not my conclusions, but those which sciences now adva^ ^ ^ mQst sign i fica nt and profound change in the scientific view is the disappearance of causality from the physical world. Force could be regarded as causal; but geometry can scarcely be so regarded. Physical science, in becoming geometrical, has thus become purely descriptive abandoning all effort to find or deal with causes. It sees the physical wo as but a ‘•shadow-land”. Professor Eddington insists upon this over and over again. It has no causal properties; it merely registers effects Nor has it any “ reality ” in itself. Professor Eddington is not quite sure what others mean when they use the word ‘‘reality”; but, in his own thought, that which lies behind the physical universe must be something in the nature of m stuff”, not always, perhaps, rising to the level of consciousness (or self- consciousness), but still of the same nature as our own minds, which give a significance to the physical world it would not otherwise have. 2 Cyclic law is imbedded in the stuff and shape of nature. All things move in cycles; and as cycles are the basis of time-in contradistinction to duration —time is relative, as cycles are relative. , Space-time (manifestation) is not flat but curved, returning upon itself through a great sweep that yet is not infinite,-like the return upon itself of the surface of a sphere whose radius is in the neighbourhood of a thousand million light-years (a light-second being 186,000 miles). The physical uni¬ verse is thus finite, but unbounded. All that reaches us physically, all that our senses can perceive, comes to us from within this sphere. Its centre is everywhere; its boundary nowhere. So Theosophy has spoken of the gg of Brahma”, and of the great cycles or Maha Kalpas of manifestation. 4. The physical universe has a grain in its structure, like the grain in rocks or trees, which is not merely relative, but inherent, and the same for all. This grain is revealed by the track of light, and the velocity of light is the limit which the velocities of material particles may approach, but never reac . At the velocity of light, mass and inertia become mathematically infinite^ and time stops. “Let there be light” formed the grain, the structural hn <0 of all that followed. . r The light and heat and magnetism which radiate from a star out into space, and which are not intercepted and absorbed by other bodies, return again, through the curvature of space-time, to reconverge at the point of their departure. Thus there may be -ghost stars”, indistinguishable from a substantial star as a source of light and heat, but in which there is no p y- So Theosonhv traces the reconvergence of the skandhas, 3 i 4 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY the nucleus for the rebirth, or reincarnation, alike of stars and men and uni- verses. 6. Matter has become wholly immaterial, unsubstantial. Mass and energy are inter-convertible and pass one into the other. Inertia, gravity, electro-magnetism, are likewise seen as different aspects of one another, and all are relative, the aspect that they show, or the effect that they appear to produce, depending upon the motion of the observer. 7. In all physical experiments and measurements of space and time and mass and force, we either gain only relative knowledge or else discover we are facing a mere truism. The reason for this is that we are viewing, or attempting to view the physical universe from within the physical universe , and are thus always measuring things against themselves. Our very notion of “length” is derived from what we try to measure by that notion. It is thus like measuring a length by taking as a unit a fixed fraction of that length. Everything is four fourths of itself, or ten tenths of itself. Such measurements yield mere truisms; and all purely physical “laws” are no more than such truisms. Over and over again Madame Blavatsky contended that no real knowledge of any plane of being could be gained from within that plane; that to see it truly, and as it is, it must be seen from above. This is fundamental in the whole procedure of occultism. Relativity theory—or more truly, as I believe, the genius of Professor Eddington working on that theory—now enunciates the same conclusion. It, too, insists that no real knowledge can be gained that way. There are no true and independent standards by which to measure. The causes operative are not there. It is a mere shadow-land; but science has not yet recognized that the more we compare shadows with shadows, the less we perceive the one important thing about them that it behooves us most to perceive—the fact that they are shadows. They are of significance only in that they are shadows of something real; and that reality is to be seen, not by looking at the shadow or where it falls, but by turning ourselves about until we face that which casts the shadow. To become absorbed in the play of shadows, to think of them as our own world, and to identify ourselves with them, is to make ourselves, also, but the shadow of ourselves. The one outstanding merit of Relativity Theory is that it makes it so easy for us to see this; to recognize the shadowy emptiness of the physical world, and so to turn away from it to the world of causal reality—to the world of spiritual consciousness and spiritual being—to the world to which Theosophy points and to which it would lead us. Henry Bedinger Mitchell. WAR MEMORIES III “The Race To The Sea” A BOUT the middle of September, 1914, the world began to waken to a realization of the fact (still only dimly felt, however) that the War was , “J*™* a " ew phase ’ that theatre of the fiercest conflict was to change, and those of us in England who were straining at the leash in our eagerness to get over there ”, breathlessly snatched at any and all news which came from the front. Looking back upon that time, now that the years have given us not only a clearer knowledge of the actual military situation, denied us at the moment, but also a perspective, we can see that the rapidly moving and seemingly tangled events, so bewildering at all times to civilians, were in ra rt y Btewiily p haPmg ^ hemselves int0 an overly plan. The Germans had Battl of^h A^" 3 ’ BaMle ° f thC Mame had been followed b y the but whfl! lh nC ’ r, 0fte ” b6en SP ° ken 0f as a transition battle; from Np the enemy had succeeded in forming a new line stretching eastward from Noyon to Verdun, and was attempting a new offensive, hoping to bring F Il t rr V1Ct ° r { Which they had failed t0 a t the Marne, the n - b H - Bh Command h ^ n their great flanking movement west of the Oise, turning around the German right, aiming first at St. Quentin in the ope of cutting off one of the chief lines of communication, then heading If°the Afl f 3 m I h n GemlanS ’ ° f C ° UrSe ’ reco ^ ized the new danger stilf A A- S J°r d reach Be gUim ' they would i° in the Belgian Field Amy still guarding Antwerp and stretching along the Scheldt, and the German occm pation of Belgium would become very precarious indeed; further, and of well nigh equal concern, all hope of taking the Channel ports-which it was now realized should have been taken at a much earlier stage of the War, when it would have been comparatively easy-all chance of seizing this most impor¬ tant strategic position. opposite the English coast, would be lost, and a trench deadlock would ensue. Hence during the latter half of September began the st plmse of the race to the sea”, now so famous in history; that dash^ northwards by the two opposing forces, in their gigantic struggle each XjS outflank the other, the result being an incredibly swift extension of the active front almost due north and south, instead of west and east, as formerly If the Germans won in this desperate race; if they could seize Antwerp and annihilate the little Belgian Army, it would enable them to wheel sharply to the west and by quick marching reach the coast (where in late September there was still a wide stretch of country between the Allied line and the sea) and sweep southward, seizing the Channel ports as they went, Calais being the special objective. * 315 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY This is a very crude outline, even though viewed as it is now in retrospect, of the general military situation at the time that I first went to Belgium. Of course, only military experts could guess what was taking place. Civilians like myself, living in the very midst of the bewildering comings and goings of troops, could have only a vague and general idea of what was actually happen¬ ing—even if we had had the time to think much about it. We saw but a small corner of the vast drama which was unrolling; the particular small comer where our work placed us, and I speak of this great phase of the War merely because it may be well to remind those who have momentarily forgotten the mighty “race to the sea”, what that “race” really was, and what it meant; also because it naturally affected everything that we who were working in Belgium wanted to do or tried to do. I have said that during the first days of the War I joined some Red Cross classes in London, in the hope of getting abroad with a recognized unit, but that, when the classes came to an end, there followed an unaccountable pause, a sudden cessation of activities. We were all left, as it were, dangling in mid air. The organizer of the classes had been an acquaintance of mine in pre- War days, and she had urged me to join them, telling me that she had every reason to expect an Ambulance Corps to be formed from those students who successfully survived the examinations, a Corps which would probably be sent to Belgium. I now determined to go to her boldly and ask what the trouble was, and what her next move would be, for I was sufficiently “informed” to realize that one must have an official excuse for getting abroad; without it one would find it almost impossible to secure the necessary visa. The trouble turned out to be the not unusual one—misunderstanding with the Higher Authorities. “Red Tape” again. But she had not given up all hope of her Ambulance Corps, for she was leaving London early the next morning, alone, for Belgium, to “look over the ground” with an eye to establishing a foothold. “I am convinced that the great thing is to be on the spot,” she said. “No earthly use to be planning work on one side of the Channel, when you yourself are on the other.” “That is exactly my idea,” I exclaimed, “I’m going with you.” There followed a somewhat animated discussion. She preferred, not unnaturally, to go alone, since she had no idea what she would be getting into “over there”, and I felt that she owed me at least this chance, since after all, she had urged me to join her classes, and I had in consequence lost all that good time. I frankly told her that I was merely making her my “offi¬ cial excuse , because once in Belgium I had no intention whatever of volun¬ teering in her Ambulance Corps unless it materialized immediately. Once on Belgian soil I intended to strike out for myself. On this basis she agreed to my joining her. So it came about that on that late September morning, after a rattier WAR MEMORIES 3W hectic night spent in hurried Which I was embarking, I found myself, with a heavy tw ^ hand bag (my only equipment) on the Os en P P . cheerily Station, looking for my travelling " this time to my through the queer, mixed crow , ® v ‘ conceivable kind of traveller presence. The platform was packed with eve^ conce.v u was n0 'T'Vto iicnal tourist was conspicuous ny - place forhlm; or,^fhe were^ oT course^officet^tchnnht^c^hc for the hr,. «rne£££ war correspondents; chaplains, non ce.c 1 k ne w that the Norfolk who did not "look the part", though tomeh^yon^U..* ^ jacket was disguising a real mission, before so much individual masculine, half feminine, for in those fi^t weeks before so m^ ^ ^ effort ceased to be purely individual and b fT whate ver we thought would an acknowledged uniform), many of us matched at whatever w ^g ^ ^ be practical, appropriate, and in ica ive o * a p degrees and kinds, plunging- It was a strange »**;»»consum.ng outwardly £-*£ toward the end of Sep- desire to be m it , to se platform of Victoria station, saying tember, we gathered on that depa P { a term i nU s. our last words, or t.k.ng our las. look at tho ^old ye to hygreat Ghent, which was our destination Them ^ ^ ^ va , uable we had come for (our passports , in an east bound military letters besides), offered us the necessary transport in i ^ S2“^ washed wondering it we had.™r pas»d a day so Pa Sn«^* s«a», we - - 318 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY If before leaving London, I had had any misgivings about being able to find immediate and useful employment, these misgivings were soon dissipated. There was work and to spare in helping to feed and tend the refugees who were pouring into Ghent by every road from the east. They came washing in on the flood-tide of calamity, terror-stricken yet dumb at the horrors they had seen, at the immensity of the disaster, at the swiftness of their own utter ruin; and Ghent, the lovely, dreamy old town of pre-War days, turned itself generously into a vast asylum, transforming the great Palais des Fetes (grim irony!) into a place where at least they had a roof over their poor heads, where they lay, bedded on straw hastily put down on the floors of the great halls; packed so close, men and women and children, that at dusk (which it was when I first saw them) you could hardly distinguish their separate forms. There was no privacy, not even decency for most, and the clean, wholesome out-of-door life they were accustomed to, had been changed into what inevi¬ tably became irksome and wearisome surroundings. The first night that I went there, which was the night after my arrival, there were nearly eleven thousand, if I remember.correctly, and they were still pouring in. Some of these poor creatures, after a day or two, or as soon as they were able to walk again, got up and staggered westward to the sea, and so by boat to England, or south, on foot, into France: others lay inert, too stunned to care what became of them,—lay inert until the fall of Antwerp and the evacuation of Ghent, when, joining the fresh, on-rushing tide of human misery, they fled. The stories that they brought were so black, so foul, so unspeakable, that, had it not been for the look in their faces (a look strangely alike in all, as though the profundity of their suffering had gone to the very roots of Being, unifying them, giving them a kind of mysterious and tragic sameness)—had it not been for that look, you would hardly have been able to believe what was told you. One cannot repeat most of these tales, they are too iniquitous, but the many War records will tell the truth about these inconceivable outrages. Day after day, of those first days of mine in Ghent, I watched these poor human derelicts come crushing, thronging, surging. They had been herded in front of marching German troops, a human screen to protect the enemy which had ruined them; they had seen those they loved shot dead while pray¬ ing at the foot of their wayside shrines,—shot dead for no reason other than the lust of blood; they had watched their wives and children driven into their cellars, there to be burnt alive, or driven out of their cellars where they had sought shelter, into the village square—to be butchered. Faint with exhaustion they came, many of them with terrible gaping wounds which, in the precipitate flight, had not been tended; bayonet thrusts and jagged wounds made by flying shrapnel, where human flesh had been torn to rags. Those who could not walk, and for whom there was not even primitive trans¬ port, came limping or almost crawling; children were born by the wayside, young girls and women and old men, with injuries past healing, fell and died where they fell, and remained there, still and deserted, just as they had fallen, while the endless caravan of human woe passed on, and left them. Perhaps WAR MEMORIES they were happier to have died q 319 SSlHbl/toT - some.™. husbands. tb eir bro.h'ers ““Thl't’ you fh” « c ri?r/ w.sT h ;:r h „” lived in jW she had eome from k "°’ V “> forget. Most tembToZn'T* ° f th<3Se women was a thin/™' 1 hunfiTy whole course of the w ’ however . worse than anyth' V° U C ° uld never what they had J. Were the children utteriv Z 7 S&W durin & the Lo then? They did ,w’i “ Ghent were to be evacuated t * you w °uld ask. they live when the W H ° W ^ tileir home village had been h™ WOUld the y go “»»•> T„ k r* ov Th ■ (Wc uld interest them little L T own misery seemed inV d be over injury to their ’ S ° stunned were they but if a, ", 3 cunous way to remark on this) £?** « ^ “ *° th "» °> «>e in the Belgian character^ r °“ sed lmm ediately, f„ r one nr??"® lh ' ret "8“» hal done right no.Tott .heOe"”"”' ““ Sery “ lE' Then question would follow ^ PaSS ’ but wh y had the Germ C0Untry nightmare repetition W h !?^ q Stl0n ’ ° Ver a " d over i n ! ZT COme? lh J" “ey“m°"r ‘JT'*”- ears ’ that IS one of the 320 THE 0 S 0 PHICAL QUARTERLY things you remember. Three years before the War, a German, speaking on behalf of the powerful Pan-German League, had written: “War must leave nothing to the vanquished except eyes to weep over their misery,"—but these Belgian peasants did not weep; they could not. I hardly ever saw a tear. So these simple dwellers of the country-side came flooding in, silent for the most part, with a kind of heroic acceptance which you would not have had otherwise, but which hurt beyond belief. Their poor shattered human loves, their wrecked homes, were memories only; yet that was accepted too. A man who stood watching that stream of appalling human misery wrote of it afterwards: “They were unimportant people; had they all stayed in their homes to be slain there, the great world would not have missed them, would have got along quite comfortably; probably not a dozen of them had been known beyond a radius of ten miles from his native hamlet; I dare say they really didn’t matter—but they were uncommonly like you and me.” According to the Prussian Creed: “The sight of suffering does one good; the infliction of suffering does one more good.” It is to be regretted that the German High Command could not have witnessed that pitiful entry into Ghent of the non-combatants whom they had first dispossessed, then muti¬ lated, and finally hunted. I had been at the Palais des Fetes three or four days only, but time seemed to be moving with lightning speed; new Wartime experiences came crowding, one on the heels of the other, and event followed event with such rapidity that it was as good as listening to a quick-firing gun. Already the first days of October were slipping away, and we were warned that the Germans were closing in on us. That race northwards of the opposing armies from the region of the Aisne, was being felt all over Belgium. Rumour constantly whispered that the enemy was actually entering the town, that Ghent must be evacuated immediately—but they had not yet come. Antwerp was still holding out, though we knew that the heavy siege guns had long since been brought up from Namur, and were pounding at the outer forts, and two of these were said to have fallen. We were told that there had been fighting at St. Nicolas, yet it was still possible to get through by car to Antwerp. (We civilians could not, of course, always distinguish between rumour and reality.) There was fighting everywhere, or so it appeared; Termonde and Alost were constantly being shelled, and news, terrible news, came sifting in of desperate hand to hand encounters in outlying villages, where the wounded still lay untended, though the Belgian Red Cross Ambulances shot to and from the firing lines with unflinching and untiring heroism, while ambulance trains, packed with wounded, brought in their sorry freight from Antwerp. The hospitals in Ghent were filled with wounded and dying—what if the Germans did come ? How would the wounded be carried away to safety? Ghent began to lose some of its earlier self-assurance, the feeling that it was immune; for day by day, like the stem hand of Fate, a Taube hung overhead in the blue vault. Would the expected French and British reinforcements never come? Then some cheering news reached us. We heard that French troops were WAR MEMORIES rU 7 Ur 7 iSPered that they were in great Ghent swarming with them ’ 777 h W- we awoke one day to find for the promised eomingTf the British" ^ denly one evening (evervthinrr i ri hey a S0 Came at Iast - Sud- were full of them Those British El, 6 “ ^ dayS) the streets sunny, with “Tipperary” on their li C j mC 1 tlng lnto town - serene and people of Ghent went swiftly and utterly ma/ T”’ 6 ” 77 7™' and the see the welcome that they gave ‘‘les An^s" T, 7'^ pathetic to they had really come. It was not in th i 16y coud not believe that better than the French, but the French C T^ that they . loved the British always been at their side and I nncct' "7 3 WayS tbe ' r ne 'ghbours; they had remembered Mons, or realized w hat°th TTv ° f the Bel S ians at this moment as though they hakTust entered t S W 'f already done ' * was %ht for the first time. So they passed^n’thei T® 33 new A1Iies t0 “ g m their rear a whole galaxy of London “ General ” ^77^’ ^ f ° ll0W ‘ ammunition and supplies That wac ™ n . 3 motor -buses, carrying grim shadow of War As the Manne h J " hUm ° r ° US t0UCh to ]i g hten the lumbering —“Shepherd's Bush *"» midst of them, but it might have been a cent™ The 7 ? “ the humed out to work, turning a comer sharolv T «' 7? m °mmg as I bus, drawn comfortably up at the side nfri 5 ’ ° ngbt lnto a Gricklewood someone to be serving “ eaSy tea ” fronts * 7 ^ CXpected did it look. I could not heV stonnZ t p,atform - S ° C0Sy and domelike »i»b one o, two of the°V?*' “ d can remember, I have never been in (vtn ’ ,, ° peed ' So far as 1 Cricklewood bus was like a kind * d bl d m my Hfe - but that old of those stirring d^s “ d Steadymg hand in tbe rush and fever time. It is perhaps difficult toTeah^ 77777 C3me &t this very little those of us who were7 77 7dst 0 f I" " ?*** US ’ h ° W of what was going on. It is easv now fn V • armies » really knew of the War, and get things all neatlv 7 ' a ° &lT and read some history moment we looked at the passinf shoTT '*■?*’* ^ bUt at tha more as it was related to our » n if u’ the rapid m °vement of troops, whole, for the si^pfe reason7aT 7 ’ 7 ^’ than 38 fittin g **> the great long enough view of the situation non - co nTbatants on the spo t had a A Besides which, we were so desneratelv 1 W much . about the great whole. W end. I cannot hope,Thereto! actulllv'to ^ 'T* t0 up our small things which I must’ have witnessed beca^eT^ “*7 ° f the interestin g portion of those great and terrible davsTf r 1 7” relatlvely to ° small a and what was not, and rather trivial'thinT* ^ & W3y8 What was im Portant pressed one most at the time thouvhi^f i7? T etimeS th ° Se which was almost violently interesting, everything ^ 322 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY of the utmost importance. There was so much to see, however, that inevitably you missed a lot. While, for instance, you would be noting the difference between the marching of the Poilu and the Tommy, you would forget to note some of the regiments as they passed, and now you probably wish you had kept a sharper lookout. So, as I have said, I have no idea how many French and British I saw come into the town. It is stated, however, that in these last days, before the fall of Antwerp, there were between 25,000 and 30,000 Allied troops concentrated in Ghent, and I often wonder where we all put ourselves! At the end of my first three or four days at the Palais des Fetes , it was suggested to me that instead of working among the refugees there, I should join a kind of scouting organization, members of which were sent out into the surrounding country to pick up some of the countless refugees who, unable because of utter exhaustion to go any further, were literally in danger of dying of starvation if not from open and untended wounds. It was a small Belgian unit, and I think it was chiefly owing to the fact that I was an Amer¬ ican that I got into it. The good Belgians looked on us with a kind of dog-like trust, counting always on the help and sympathy of our country, and as I look back on those early days of the War, I am always astonished at the things that Americans could do; the doors which suddenly opened; the facility with which we could move about. We could go almost anywhere, right into the German lines without any apparent preliminaries—I knew of several most curious cases while I was in Ghent—because,'being “neutral”, we were therefore Hun-proof; this meant, or was supposed to mean, arrest-proof; and it did mean this if you could establish your identity satisfactorily. It might have included bomb-proof—but of course, that was asking too much. I joined this small organization, then, and with it scoured as much of the countryside as was left us to the east, for, as I have said, the actual firing line was often not more than four or five miles distant. This work took us into lonely and dreary places indeed; into semi-destroyed and abandoned villages which had been the scenes of sharp and terrible fighting in the inter¬ minable advance and retreat of the battle lines—sharp and terrible fighting as the bullet-spattered walls and the heaps of fallen bricks and shattered glass told us, and great gaping holes in the sides of the houses where some shell had burst; always, too, solitary and half starved cats creeping noiselessly through the ruins, adding an air of indescribable desolation. We found our abandoned refugees in all kinds of comers, wherever they could drag them¬ selves for imaginary shelter; often in the cellars of the demolished houses where they had crawled, to die like animals, out of sight. It was a heart¬ breaking occupation to go down to fetch them from there, for on hearing our footsteps they usually thought at first that we were Germans, and their terror, even in their half dead condition, was a dreadful thing to see. I remember one night with special vividness, for this was the first time that I had seen certain aspects of modern warfare save in pictures. We had been sent out very late (nearly midnight, I fancy) some distance on the WAR MEMORIES 323 A Qf Nicolas for some special cases Antwerp road, beyond report ed to’us. The password had in that general vicinity whic „ "Mons”, or something llke tha *. been given us, of course,-Marne o sentries who were at short think-so we had no trouble in getting • { h sha dows to accost us, the distances apart, and who came-eepmg out^ of unreality . Uke red lanterns which they cam f J ? a dim , sad moonlight, over the figures on a stage, and we drovealo g, ^ ^ troops camped on roughly paved road, through mi bed wire entanglements, or wide either side of the road; past acres ^ sharp stake s which have stretches of ground thickly stake sow ing o{ dragon's teeth—pale, made so many people thinkofthem ^ ^ which stretched away ash-coloured sand bags piled hig dikes mnn mg out into a gloomy winter into the darkness, looking like - cava i ry , the horses tied close together, sea; sombre and indistinct masses ° ^ moon%ht; silent men stealing curiously tranquil, as though dream g bark of some restless phantomlike here and there, the occasm up their strangely- SpoHce dog”; and had come back to h e to ~ ~ “ bdore many hom passed. , . spent at Melle, a village less than five Then came the terrible day that we sp ^ ^ of Ghent. Melle miles away on the Alost ent renched just beyond the end had not been evacuated, and th G of {ourth time) to seize it, were of the town, and trying (I believe f “ * The French were playing their being repulsed with day, and the street fighting- usual gallant part by the side of the g qu arters and the intolerable, that deadliest of all kinds, becau ® e s ° reets J k1 the crash of falling walls-the echoing din caused by the narrow streets ^ ^ ^ o{ CO urse, mixed street fighting was of the severest. O ^ ^ we were organized up in this, because unfortunate^ that ^ response to the call we for civilian relief, but as we ha d come to help, the fight was still had received, and m searc were to ld to keep as close as possibl going on, though now at the far end. \\ and so diminishing Jo the houses, however, avoidingth^m ddle ^ ^ was terrific for, the risk of being struck by bullet ^ ^ were shr i e king overhead, beside the tangled street fight g ^ ^ tQwn itse )f. The reason for this though none were actually bu . R German lines being on one side of (so we were told afterwards) was that the Gem ^ ^ each side the village and those of the ' renc^ reinforcements; they were carefully avoid- 3 2 4 theosophical quarterly and, the order given, they dashed forward down the thoroughfare m the direction of the fighting. Then without warning, an be wildering (from heaven knows where-everything was happening with bewUder ng Sty) tLre shot pa.t us two or three of the famous Brtooo ■ d chien batteries, the dogs straining valiantly at their coll , , »yo* To . their smali guns into aetion. That really was a wondertu sightminiature, a, it were), for so small are the forgets what deadly work those little batteries can o. ‘ _ giving a good account of themselves, though just how or where I never fhTfivht was more noise to me than anything else; I saw little of it, for we tad come ."it was evident that the Oemran. were bong pushed back fthev come on again later. I believe, and with more success), and. the sound the fighting gradually subsided. As we advanced we saw how desperate a tow leSined the Lsault and the defence had been a * we had arrived The straight main street, at some period of the fi g ht ' had be la taket by-irufflenses from a part of the German lines no. two hundred yards h vnnrl the village limit and it was a place of horror; the dead piled high, Kh.s«y inanimate heaps, just as they bad f.llen-hundreds: toge.hen There was no time to bury them for days, I was told afterwards. Though Red Cross Ambulances were there, many of the wounded had not yet been came awav but lay half propped against the walls, or stretched ou on the hard oaving stones 7 Some of the fields around the village were also filled with dead and dying and sorely wounded—there, where the shells had been falling and there were some Belgian Red Cross Volunteer women belonging to an Ambulance Corps, whom I shall never forget. They did the most splendid work that day. Without previous experience of warfare, they went straig across those fields, the enemy guns trained on them because they could no o course keep out of sight, bringing in the wounded on stretchers too heavy for them or tending the dying as they lay in their last agony; never pausing for rest or food; careless of-themselves; mindful only of the suffering of those who had fought so bravely and who now needed their care. It was at Melle, too that I first came to realize what the priests of Belgium did on the battle¬ fields. They were everywhere, and they were heroic; true soldiers of Christ. They went where only the hardiest veterans were to be found; into the trenches, under the most murderous shell fire, exhorting the men there to remember God and to fight to the death for King and country; they were to be seen in burning villages, pulling the helpless out of charred ruins; on open battle fields, exposed to bursting shells and ceaseless rifle fire ; and when there seemed to be nothing else to do which was more strictly within the supposed limits of their priestly vocation, they seized a rifle themselves from the hand of some dead trench-comrade, and fired at the enemy with hearty and vigorous aban¬ don The soldiers adored them, and no wonder. They were their staunchest friends. So this day at Melle I had an opportunity to see for myself what the Belgian priests were like, for there were two Cur£s I do not now remember where they came from, but one belonged to Melle itself, I believe—who, WAR MEMORIES 325 according to the village folk, had been working without pause for three or four days and nights; who were always to be found where the fighting was the hottest, showing a supreme contempt for death; who picked up the wounded when bullets were flying and shrapnel was splintering all about them, bearing them away on stretchers or in their arms if need were; who, kneeling beside the dying, in the open field and in full sight of the enemy, their cassocks soaked with blood gushing from the open wounds of those they were succour¬ ing, administered the last rites, without haste, in an immense and tender compassion. Such were the priests of Belgium. Nothing could daunt them; torture itself could not silence them; from first to last they showed the true Belgian spirit in all they did. As soon as we were able to get there, we went to the Convent of Melle where we had been told there were wounded non-combatants needing help, for although for the most part they had kept to their cellars during the terrify¬ ing hours of the street fighting, some had been forced into the open by falling roofs or gaping walls, and so had been caught by bullet or bayonet thrust. The sisters were of course overwhelmed with work, but there was a curious peace reigning in the convent. As we entered it, out of the dead-filled street where hell had been let loose, we passed as one would pass from the tumult of a boiling cataract to the still, untroubled waters at the river’s edge. There was almost a twilight stillness, for the cool, white walls, and the silent minis¬ trations of the nuns, gave a feeling of rest and calm despite the misery which greeted us. It was a pathetic scene. Lying about, in all kinds of positions indicating mental as well as physical pain, were some of the simple people of Melle, also some refugees from distant villages who had been caught here in their flight to Ghent, and the good sisters were moving noiselessly among them, speaking little save to offer some gentle encouragement, while giving them really skilful medical attention; compassionately practical, and with a sweet and gracious wisdom. They knew their poor townsfolk well. The War annihilated many beautiful things, but I doubt if the peace of that little convent at Melle could suffer death. To me, that day, as I passed through its humble door, from the hideous blood-soaked streets, it was as though something out of the Eternal had touched me, and later, when we left with the few refugees we had come for, I knew that I was carrying away with me a memory which would never grow dim. In my own mind I always think of that day at Melle as ending the first phase of “the race to the sea”, for, immediately after, Antwerp fell, and that was the signal for the second phase. The stubborn fighting at Melle is now a matter of recorded history; the village was, on the day of which I have written, in the very midst of the danger zone, and it was one of the last of the towns to hold out against the German rush toward Ghent. Volunteer. {To be continued ) OF THE NYMPHS CAVE By what stars shall we direct our flight and by what means avoid the magic power of Circe and the detaining charms of Calypso? For thus the fable of Ulysses obscurely signifies , which feigns him abiding an unwilling exile , though alluring spectacles were continually presented to his sight , and his stay was invited by everything that could delight the senses and enchant the heart. But our true country , like that of Ulysses , is that from whence we come and where our Father lives. Plotinus. I T has been said that Theosophy is the revelation that there is a purpose of life. That purpose has been represented as the discovery by each human being of the real and enduring Self which is both the cause and the objective of his personal existence. By virtue of its divine ancestry, the soul inherits the right to know the Real, but it must earn the privilege of exercising its right. Thus, the moment of the discovery of the Real has been likened to the culminating adventure of a romance. Before the Real can be known, the aspirant must be fired with the desire to know it, and he must learn to stand firm in the conviction that, in spite of every lying appearance, knowledge exists and is attainable. The ordinary language of metaphysical demonstration cannot do justice to this theme, for the reason that its subject-matter overflows the limits of the intellect as at present constituted. Therefore, the sages and philosophers who have described the quest of the Real, have been forced to illustrate their exposition with parables and allegories symbolizing the experience of the heart. The quotation from Plotinus is an example. The philosopher is trying to make his audience realize that the longing of the soul for the world of divine beauty is not an abstract mental condition, but an intense and moving state of consciousness. After exhausting the resources of his powerful intellect to illumine his meaning, he calls in the aid of a poet. He compares the nostal¬ gia of the soul, exiled in the body, to the homesickness of Ulysses. It is the parable of the Prodigal Son. The Odyssey has been read by many as a mere tale of earthly adventure with no other significance than that which is obvious upon the surface of the poem. The wisest of the Greeks, however, did not regard it in this way. For them, Homer was more than a great poet; he was a seer, a mystic. The Iliad and the Odyssey were cherished as mystical scriptures, as treatises revealing through the veil of romance and allegory the sacred destiny of the soul and the process of initiation into the Mysteries. Especially during the late after¬ noon of the Greek day, during the Platonic Renaissance which extended from Ammonius Saccas to Proclus, the best minds of the disappearing race 326 THE CAVE OF THE NYMPHS 327 seem to have turned back to meditate upon the glorious dawn of its eye The greatest of the commentators upon Homer were the later Neoplatonists In the view of the Neoplatonists, Ulysses was the type of the human soul adrift upon the waters of illusion, but saved from annihilation again and again by the ministrations of Pallas Athene (Divine Wisdom), the initiated Guide who responded in compassion to the prayers of the homesic wan erer. Whether we accept or reject their claim to have discovered an un cr yin mysticism in Homer, we shall be forced to admit that there are Passages in his poems which are senseless if interpreted in any other way. And th are other passages which recall portions of the Divine Comedy, such a . instance, the episode when Pallas Athene, like another unseals the inner sight of Ulysses after his return to his native island of Ithaca. Without the aid of the Goddess, he could not see the true outlines of the dear country which he had reached at last. . In the same Thirteenth Book where this scene is enacted, there is a descrip¬ tion of a hill above the little harbour where Ulysses had landed, and ot a mysterious cave which passes through the hill. It seems that this cave caused much wonderment among the ancient readers of Homer The dis¬ cussions which revolved about it suggest, incidentally, that matter-of-ri people existed in antiquity, just as they exist in modem tunes There were those who argued that there was such a cave on the island of Ithaca there were those who argued that the cave was only a fiction of the poet. Fortunately we possess a treatise by the Neoplatonist, Porphyry, m w lie 1 the philosopher considers what may have been Homer’s purpose in intro ucing the description of the cavern at this particular point in his narrative. Por- phvry comes to the happy conclusion that it is quite irrelevant whether the cave was or was not a feature of the Ithacan landscape, for the grotto depicted by Homer is the cave of initiation. He believes that Homer, speaking to those who had ears to hear, intended to convey the idea that Ulysses, landing on his island, had completed, as it were, a cycle of mystical experience, and had thus gained a definite status in the spiritual world. A work must be judged by its merits, but it is certain that Porphyry did not come wholly unqualified to his task. He was the most distinguished disciple of Plotinus and, after his master’s death (270 A.D.), was the leading exponent of the Neoplatonic doctrine. Though much of his time was devoted to the paraphrasing and editing of the works of Plotinus, he holds independent rank as one of the great figures of the Platonic Renaissance Madame Blavatsky refers to him as “the most practically philosophical, and the soberest of all the Neoplatonists” (Theosophical Glossary, 239-240). In 1823 Thomas Taylor translated The Cave of the Nymphs, and Ins version with its valuable foot-notes, has been followed by the present writer who has, however, taken the liberty occasionally of paraphrasing Taylor s phrases when their wording has seemed too technical. The following are the verses from the Thirteenth Book of the Odyssey which 1 _ 1 „ 328 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY “High at the head a branching olive grows, And crowns the pointed cliffs with shady boughs. A cavern pleasant, though involved in night, Beneath it lies, the Naiades’ delight: Where bowls and urns of workmanship divine And massy beams in native marble shine; On which the Nymphs amazing webs display, Of purple hue, and exquisite array. The busy bees within the urns secure Honey delicious and, like nectar, pure. Perpetual waters through the grotto glide. A lofty gate unfolds on either side; That to the north is pervious to mankind; The sacred south to immortals is consigned.” The cave, says Porphyry, is the symbol of the material universe and of the human body which is the microcosm of that universe. “The exterior of a cavern is pleasant, but its interior is obscure and its very bottom is darkness itself.” Similarly, physical Nature may be conceived as a cavernous island in a boundless space filled with the light of an undivided, divine consciousness. Embodied existence, being separated by the walls of illusion from the direct radiance of the Central Sun, is qualified by limitation and darkness. It is narrow and obscure, like a cave. It is scarcely necessary to prove this point. The body has the appearance of being a thing quite complete in itself, so that the consciousness identified with it, suffers the delusion of being distinct from all other consciousness, embodied or disembodied. As this incarnated “self” is limited in space, so is it limited in time, for the physical basis of its existence is in itself only a transient aggregate of molecules which has no being beyond the confines of birth and death. Embodied consciousness is dark, since only an infinitesimal portion of the light of the Real filters through the barrier of the body. This is true, in the most concrete and physical sense. The eye is sensitive to one gamut of rays and blind to the rest. The other senses respond to various gamuts of vibra¬ tions, but each is operative in a zone which has the dimension of a point in relation to the unlimited sphere of being which surrounds it. ' It would seem that there are three possible attitudes to take towards bodily existence. There is the irrationally hopeful acceptance of its limitations and darkness, which is the attitude of the vast majority of mankind. This rests upon the continued resurgence of the psychic desire for sensation, coupled with the notion that the body is designed to be an instrument for the gratifi¬ cation of psychic impulses. Then, as opposed to this general view of the body, there is the opposite extreme of that false asceticism which loathes and scorns and abuses the sum-total of physical nature. This false asceticism is, in a way, symbolized by Simon Stylites sitting motionless on his pillar, and THE CAVE OF THE NYMPHS 329 seems to have taken deepest root in the East. Its votaries have, indeed, freed themselves, to an extraordinary degree, from the vulgar craving for sensation, and from the illusion that incarnation is desirable as an end in itself; but they have not imagined that incarnation may still have its function in the economy of Nature. Porphyry suggests a third attitude toward the body, conceiving it to be the matrix from which the real self-consciousness of the soul is born. In the words of an Indian sage, “ Maya is the Shakti of Atman.” The dark and narrow cave of the human body becomes, then, a place of probation for the Ego which has voluntarily submitted to limitation and darkness for the pur¬ poses of its own evolution. “The ancient Persians occultly signifying the descent of the soul into sublunary regions and its subsequent reascent, initiated the mystic in a cavern.” From this point of view, the body becomes a prison only when the soul lingers within it longer than is necessary for its instruction. In truth, it is a corridor through which the soul passes from a lower to a higher stage of being. The Mohammedans have preserved a saying of Jesus: “ Life is a bridge. Pass over it. Do not build upon it.” “Perpetual waters through the grotto glide.” Porphyry comments: “In consequence of containing perpetually flowing streams of water, this cave is not a symbol of a spiritual substance but of a material essence.” It is the quality of sensuous, animal life which is suggested by the image. Heraclitus, speaking of disembodied souls, says that “we live their death and we die their life,” as if the animal life of the “separate” self in the body appeared to the spiritual man as a chilling contraction of the partless con¬ sciousness of the Logos in which he participates. Certain properties of water aptly symbolize the night which darkens the soul’s vision as it descends into generation and which compels the soul, as it were, to evolve specialized organs of sensation in order to feel its way in the dark, as a blind man develops and enhances the sense of touch. Thus, to mention two phases only of the animal consciousness in which the soul’s powers are condensed, it is aware of things outside the body to the extent that their superficial aspects are reflected on its own surface, as a stream mirrors more or less clearly the trees and rocks on the banks; and it is in a state of continuous change, like a river with many currents and eddies. The animal consciousness may be compared to a mirror enclosed in a set of lenses which absorb or deflect most of the rays directed towards it, so that the images which it receives are fragmentary and inadequate representations of things-in-themselves. However, in the animal kingdom, this apparent warping of consciousness seems to be normal, and to be designed by Nature as a means of compelling the animal to develop the germ of mind. In other words, if the instinct of an animal were virtually omniscient, if its conscious¬ ness were a perfect mirror of everything in its physical environment, it might escape suffering and prolong its life quite indefinitely, but there would be no incentive for it to become actively intelligent, for intelligence would only 33 o THE 0 S 0 PHICAL QUARTERLY spoil its perfection. The animal is also forced by the struggle for existence to distinguish between the image of its own body and the images of other bodies, and this isolation and magnification of one image, at the expense of all the rest, would seem to foreshadow the rudimentary state of psychic self-consciousness, when the image of the body is regarded as a separate self. A . . The animal consciousness is again marked by an endless series of displace¬ ments. William James often compared the continuous succession and trans¬ formation of our ordinary moods and desires to a stream. There results from this condition a state of unremitting hunger and dissatisfaction. The desires of the animal nature cannot be completely and permanently satisfied, for each separate desire transmits part of its content of force to a new desire which succeeds it, while another portion of its force is mysteriously stored away as a skandha or seed of some future counterpart of itself. It has been suggested that the stinging power of appetite is the great agent of evolution in the animal kingdom. Without its incessant stimulus, for example, the animals would never have gained and retained the faculty of locomotion. The “moisture” of animal life, therefore, seems to provide a necessary medium for the subsequent development of two of the great principles which the soul can only acquire, as it appears, by reflecting itself in the bodily consciousness. These “principles” may be defined as individualized mind and desire. As Heraclitus said, “Souls like to get wet.” Porphyry’s comment is, perhaps, less cryptic than it sounds: The ancients thought that (living) souls are incumbent upon water which is inspired by divinity, as Numenius says, who adds . . . that the Spirit of God moves on the waters. The Egyptians, likewise, represent the Sun and all the Planets, not standing on anything solid, but on a sailing vessel; for souls descending into generation fly to moisture.” “ The cave is sacred to Nymphs,” he continues, “not to Nymphs in general but to a particular order, the Naiads. We give the special title of Naiads to the nature-powers that preside over waters; and this term is also commonly applied to all souls descending into generation.” The Naiads are the Reincarnating Egos of the Eastern Wisdom. Retaining their inalienable identity as an angelic host, they are, nevertheless, mysteriously immersed in the waters of animal life. Out of the substance of the water they weave vestures, “purple webs admirable to the view.” “To souls descending into generation, what symbols can be more appropriate than the instruments pertaining to weaving? . . . The purple webs are evidently the flesh which is woven from the blood. Thus also Persephone, the guardian of everything produced from seed, is described by Orpheus as weaving a web; and the Heavens were called by the ancients a veil, in consequence of being, as it were, the vestment of the celestial Gods.” Furthermore, the webs of the Nymphs are suspended from beams of marble, “as the formation of the flesh is on and around the bones, which in the bodies of animals resemble stones.” It is interesting to recall, in reference to the last sentence, certain the cave of the nymphs 331 1 ” n “ “ P ”'” 1 of the skeleton. . .. { so i r itual and physical natures. The purple web symbolizes the blend g ^P.^ ^ described as a com- The personality or psychic self, b° r In the image of the web the posite entity (suntheton) by the Neop ^ element which comes from design seems to stand for t e S P*” ^ Q f an imal sensations over which above, the purple dye sl lT lfy «i g fl the substance of the the noetic element moves, like the Spirit web is differentiated matter. . th Nymphs finish on Earth the According to a beautiful mterpreUtion, the_Ny ^ ^ ^ Com . weaving which they began in Heave p -Orpheus says that Persephone, mentary of Proclus on the . Ttmceus of P • °P was on i y a Nymph, while she remained on high, weavl g he/proper habitation, she left as yet undefiled; but that, pn«edmgI o{ the lo wer world, her web unfinished and was ra ™ s ^ y b u/iverse would be imperfect The unfinished state of her were produced. Hence or incomplete if nothing m er many Demiurgi to weave Plato says that the one Demiurgus ca ^ us that the addi- together the immortal and mortal na u j b text orial life of the Universe.” tion of the mortal genera is the perfection oE the texto, trcatise . There We now come to the most suggestiye partof Porp yry - thebusy are “bowls and urns of workmanship tone withm the ca ^^ „ bees within the urns secure honey e ici The fi rs t is the superficial. Two meanings are latent in the ■ : ntoxica tions of sensation, as the Earthly honey is a symbol of thesw sdf whi ch collect drops of bees represent the restless desires of topyh ^ 0rpheuS| Saturn was pleasure from objects o sensa 1 • be ing filled with honey, was ensnared with honey by Jupiter For Saturn g, intoxicated, his senses were c ar ene , mofe significant meaning. The - misuses. • j t v. e symbols of Bacchus, since “The stony bowls in the grotto are, ^^ &nd theseare CO gnate they are bodies of earth that have een^ ^ ^ q{ ^ yine is br0U ght to a to the vine, the gift of the , „ The honey which is depos- proper maturity by the celestial fin of the i ^ J o{ ^ ited in these bowls is. uccording th P is gathered from the hearts of senses. It is the nutriment of the sou j XDe ri enced . When this nectar flowers, that is, from the essence of thing® expen _ ^ puHfied and is poured into “the bowls ° f p^l’s words,’ “This corruptible shall have ptfonin^pSd this mortal shall have put on immortality.” J £ # « 332 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY It is clear that, with the introduction of these new symbols, we have come to the turning-point in the cave, where the path of the immortals diverges 1 war s rom the path of the mortals. That turning-point corresponds to he moment when the soul awakens in the body and becomes aware of the cavern walls which hem it in, at the same time that it remembers with pas- sivelvt TvS * tS u Wn bnght h ° me in the heavens - Hitherto it has pas- s vely submitted to the delusion that the body is its self, and that the body’s desires are its desires Now it sees that delusion as grotesque and monstrous, for it recognizes that its real Self overflows the boundaries of the body and that its real desires cannot be satisfied by any sensation of the body. n the Odyssey, this moment of repentance or “turning back” occurs when Gindin r eS /J e CyCl ° PS ° f Sight ' “ Th, ' S deed beca ™ the occasion of reminding him of his errors, until he was safely landed in his own country. fZZ£^L7?T tlC ^^ y .! ibera , ted from this life by the simple act of blind- lvfinY ( ’ S th f natal demon ” of the i° wer nature) and of para- ^ , He Wh ° dar6S t0 d ° this ' as U1 y sses dared - "nH bepur- d by the anger of the marine and material ‘Gods’, whom it is first requisite to appease by sacrifices, labours, and patient endurance, at one time Indeed — g WU thC PaSS1 ° nS ’ and at an ° ther ’ em Pl°ying enchantments, and ., y , Van ,°, US m f anS transforming himself ever more completely, in order that being at length divested of the tom garments, by which his true person has been conceded, he may recover the ruined empire of his soul ” P whlnYt Y°eTan7, deSCnl r S K the W3r “ ^ the S ° uI enga e e s from the instant u d Sen0usIy be « ms to combat the errors which its psychic per¬ sonality has committed in its name. It is a battle to the death for the ort;^cto OSe Thu d s e Yet nt 6X f enCe and iS transformed i^o the substance ( ic US tbe tnump hant soul can return home, enriched bv the powers of self-consciousness which it brings beet from its adventures in the by the 'greLTbeautvT ti!e °- ^ ° ne SCa '‘ Cely fail to be moved interpreted it ' lm&gery ' as the Neoplatonists have iiesHssHxs “Now with each other, on the golden floor, Seated near Zeus, the Gods converse; to whom I he venerable Hebe nectar bears, In golden goblets; and as these flow round, e immortals turn their careful eyes on Troy.” THE CAVE OF THE as says that ambrosia, the : 't, and signifies their spirit! analogous to moist nutrimen mortal natures. “When th providentially, they are said to drink I he pleasures of the Immortals ‘ be possessed therefore by all pure property of the whole only when uni of life with the children of earth, and every terrestrial flower, where it m quest of it. One can now perceive souls proceeding into live * to the Gods, will ^ " aVmg 1 return to the place from whence it first • • • \\ e must, therefore, 1 " * symbols of a spiritual nature, which i generation.” It would seem that an Eastern shad rnm^ietes the thought of the r —- - ow the honeymakers’ king when 1 so did voice, mind, sight a'nd hearing >olism of the two gates of the cave is rather i™ ical language of astrology; so that it is impossible 1 Sis XT' , iketch . tha t the two portals are adapted to Tme fl ‘ I 030 Wh ° are f0rced by ^eir own nee. Yforth I” 1 ® “ thC CaVe 0f the body, and of Lrated'soulT f ° f ° therS ' Such a distinctio, berated souls, is frequently set forth in the scr ’ ” hlS ^markable essay on The Wanderings s or Plato f r ^ n ° meanS SUCh an exalted 1 ih ZT' Fo r u ateS: f ° r they large ’y benefite TheYforo rn companions perished pri, t herefore, Ulysses may be taken as the tvoe of g the portal of the mortals, but who do not reas. 2 ye“ he^ dis 77, during Physical life the ne yet alive he is endowed with the consciousness other aspect of the symbol. Its astronomical 3! T ° nS ° f the S0U1 ’ S e "o'otion. 1 Z th /elf-conscousness is an expression of a the formation of atoms and solar systems "“ serM 'i Por Phyry. " that th T, 7 7 tfte '- r0ds . is analogous to dry >al and incorruptible natures, whereas and indicates their providential atten- nectar S ” are repr6Sented as energizing must belong to the pure soul onlv and S'. X r T 1 th “ be ,he ted. The Gods long to share the elixir is Tf a dr ° P ° f h in the heart of is duly found by the soul which goes forth i» it justly and wh"S£I** ■ * •. admit th*r T™’ ' S em >nently just and sober. that honeycombs and bees are appropriate - Wedded t0 nature produced by it of the 1 scripture, the Prashna Upani- the p ass age fr ° m Porphyry: “Like as the r , V" 1 he departs > and all return when 335 that Numenius and his follower; thouSe oe ” f n? Wth ° Ut reaSOn represented Man, who passim over £ generation, and thus at Lgth a^ves at S ? 7 “* ° f mattef and are unknown and where dwells a nation “ d ^ ‘ Who ne’er knew salt, or heard the billows roar.’ ” Stanley V. La Dow. tSf For man has closed himself up, narrow chinks of his cavern. —Blake. Ml he sees all things through the THE HAKO: AN INDIAN RITE PART II T HE cycle of rituals which constitute the Hako Ceremony takes five days for completion, and follows immediately upon The Preparatory Rites which were described in the preceding instalment of this article. As stated therein, a commodious earth lodge with a long passage-way leading to the outer entrance, which must of necessity face the East, has been prepared and dedicated for the enactment; in the centre is the hearth, back of which, to the est, is the Consecrated Holy Place where the Sacred Articles now lie at Cere- momal rest m readiness for the approaching drama. Back of them sits the I ather, flanked by the bearers of the Calumets and the Eagle Wings, while the Son occupies the “place of humility” at the north of the entrance-way. as thl rSZ** th ?, Fa ‘ her ’ S Party are ran & ed alon & the south wall, and 35 Ch dren assemble they form an opposite line on the north. Ar Sr *11 ga J her u d Within the Lodge ' the Fathers rise > lifting the Sacred Artjcles, and the Kurahus addresses the Children, telling them that they must do! r y r V “ COndUCt as he tries t0 P erform faithfully the rites handed down from their fathers; he further explains: frrSr t] M du r ° f 1 the Kurahus t0 teach these things; he has received them and so onSro S ’ Wh ° ha$ r6CeiVed th6m fr ° m 3 Sti11 older kurahus, and so on through many generations back to the time when they were revealed to our fathers through a vision from the mysterious Powers Above; the vision by that P o r arii 1Se N ame f °l EaSt; they always descend The Above by that path. None of the songs of this ceremony can be changed- they must be sung accurately just as they have been handed down to us for the oTsuch SP words Ab ° Ve and t0 US ’ and We must * careful andSh^Jr T U ? deV ° te WS t0 l6aming these S0I * S and their meaning and the acts which accompany them; he must spend much of his time in been k t in w 2 thmgS and in pra >' in S to the Mighty Powers We have been told that m a vision our fathers were taught how to make the Feathered should m;veTkr t rJngSof h rbi t rdrXhS m i t to the . SOngsso that the y SSSSiS; g S Feathered Stems over the heads of the people and sing- 336 THE HAKO: AN INDIAN RITE 337 mg that Tirawa is indeed the Father of all things here below and of the Lesser Powers which come to us in dreams. He sends help by these Lesser Powers because they alone can come to us so that we can see and feel them. And then we sing of Mother Com, who has led us on our journey, who has entered before us the Lodge of the Son, and who brings promises of peace and plenty. When the song is over, the Children are given the feast which we have in readiness, and then they go to their homes to remain until evening. “When the sun has set and it is dark and the stars are shining, then again all gather in the Lodge; wood is piled on the fire, and when the flames leap high ‘y 6 T ^ U , rahas and h,s Party, bearing the Hako, rise from their position behind the Holy Place of the hearth. Although the Lodge in general is typified as a nest, the Holy Place at the west, back of the fire, is its special representative, and o, Cre When n0t ln actlon t]i e Hako is always laid at Ceremonial rest. v owly we make the circuit of the Lodge singing the invocation to the Visions, which begins with the words: Hither come we pray you, come unto us Bringing with you joy’; the spirits of the birds on the Feathered Stems join our spirits in this call, and high in their dwelling-place above, the Visions hear this call, joined to the call of our spirit, and descending by the Eastern Path, they pass over the quiet Earth The song tells that they approach the door of the Lodge, that they cross the threshold, that they fill the Lodge with their Presence and that they ‘Touch the children, gently touch them Giving dreams of joy ’— concluding with the words, ‘They the sky ascending reach their dwelling; There they rest above, They their dwelling reach—holy Visions, There they rest above.’ ” During the last stanza of this ritual, as the Kurahus and his assistants with the choir and the drum-bearers march around the Lodge, the song is taken up by all the people, men, women and children, until the walls fairly vibrate with the sonorous melody. Miss Fletcher tells us that the face of her old friend was radiant with joy as he described and dwelt upon the happiness brought to all by the Visions which attend the Hako. It is now past midnight, and at the close of the great chorus the people go to their homes to sleep and dream of their happiness. The Son remains at his post near the >™er door, while the Kurahus and his assistants keep watch from behind the Holy Place where the Sacred Articles again lie at Ceremonial 338 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY tst. I he fue burns to embers, the noise of the camp dies slowly away, and darkness and silence settle down within the Lodge. As the night at length draws to a close, a server is ordered to lift the skins which hang at the inner and outer doors of the long entrance-way, and to watch for and report the first glimmer of light. “When he comes in with these tidings, we rise, take up the Hako, and, looking toward the East, we sing the first song of the Dawn ceremony. We sing slowly and with reverent ofDawn ° f ^ mySterious and P owerful act of Tirawa in the birth t J‘J n ,., the 5 rst u V T Se we cal1 to Moth *r Earth, the Mother-who-breathes- u SS been aS ' eeP and restinK durin £ th e night; the life which she breathes forth she receives with the breath of the Dawn from Tirawa: ‘Awake oh Mother from sleep! Awake, the night is far spent! The signs of Dawn are now seen In the East whence cometh new life’; Dawn^thfflpa ' learS , tb ® CaI1, She awakes ’ she arises - she f eels the breath of tzzsz d11 things move with the breath ° f the although it happenTevery°day. ^ ^ ° f ^ — d > “Next we call upon the Mother Eagle to awake. She represents the Powers which dwell above, and which are sent by Tirawa to big us help with 111 the e L re p heSe P ° W r S dWe "’ 3nd She Can s P eak with them! stir for the hrLtk /l n'® ^ Stir ’ and 3,1 thin g s below awake and , ’ breath of the Dawn is upon them; the breath of New Life which has come with the first signs in the East, is everywhere LodfeTnd M t 0 he h R “ ger ° f the Powers Above - stands within the Pao f d th e Kurahus hears her voice as she tells him what the signs in the S e “ S tim th “ Tira ™' *<“ ^11-Father, moves oX knei *“?=* fOT,h D >™- I* » breath o£ new-bon, Dal - ££•£*?£ p °»- -—■*- the SSI*! "I' 5 Molher Ea S'« ^ understands r hild ‘' th ThC Chi,d 0 «° Da ^n S Man, S to of New Life for the coming dHy!™* ^ ‘ ^ r6Ceive the breath This is the meaning of these songs; the words do not t P ii oil «, * f J om °ur fathers and taughTto may teach it to any one who is serious-minded and truly THE HAKO: AN INDIAN RITE 339 desires to learn these sacred things, which were first taught to our fathers by Kawa, the Mother Eagle. “Last of all we summon the Son, who has been asleep and resting in the Lodge. He hears the call and he too looks to the East and sees the signs of “Now all the Powers above and all things below have risen and received the breath of New Life; Mother Eagle has stood and spoken in the Lodge, the Kurahus has heard and understood, and the Son too is awake and standing with us, awaiting the coming of the Morning Star. Morning Star is one of the Lesser Powers. Our fathers performed sacred ceremonies in his honour, and we are reverent toward him. “ Morning Star is like a man. He is painted red all over, for that is the colour of life; he is clad in leggings, and a robe is wrapped about him, and on his head is a soft, downy feather; this feather represents the soft, light cloud that is high in the heavens, and the red is the touch of the coming Sun. It is also a symbol of breath and of life. “The Star comes from a great distance, too far away for us to know the place where he starts. At first we can hardly see him, he is so far off; then we see him again for he is coming steadily toward us all the time; we watch him approach; he comes nearer and nearer, and now we see him clearly, standing there in the heavens, a strong man shining brighter and brighter. The soft plume in his hair moves with the breath of the New Day, and the ray of the Sun touches it with colour; as he stands there so bright he is bringing us strength and new life. “Then as we look he grows less bright, he is receding, going back to the dwelling-place whence he came; we watch him vanishing, passing out of sight. He has left with us the gift of life which Tirawa sends him to bestow. “Still we stand looking eastward through the long passage-way, watching and singing till we see the Dawn itself approach. Nearer and nearer it comes, its brightness fills the sky, the shadowy forms on Earth become visible and more visible, and then the Dawn also slowly recedes; it is following the Morn¬ ing Star, back to the place whence it came—to its birthplace. “The Day is close behind, advancing along the path of the Morning Star and the Dawn; as he approaches, the Dawn vanishes wholly from our sight, and we sing: 4 Day is here! Day is here, is here! Arise my Son, lift thine eyes! Day is here! Day is here, is here! Look up my Son and see the Day! Day is here! Day is here, is here! Day is here, is here! ’ “We sing this song with loud voices; we are glad. We shout ‘Daylight has come! Day is here,’ for the light is over the Earth. As we look out through 340 THE 0 S 0 PHICAL QUARTERLY the door of the Lodge we can see the trees, and all things stand out clearly in the light. Still we sing and shout, ‘Day is here! Daylight has come!’ We call to the children to awake, that all the animals are coming forth from the places where they have been sleeping. The deer leads them, she comes from her covert bringing her young into the light of day, and our hearts are glad as we sing: ‘Lo, the deer! Lo the deer, the deer Comes from her covert of the night! Day is here! Day is here, is here! Lo, the deer! Lo the deer, the deer! All creatures wake and see the light. Day is here! Day is here, is here!’ ” Miss Fletcher comments,—“Such is the drama of the Dawn, the mystic birth of Day as conceived by a Pawnee fully versed in the beliefs of his people. The aged Kurahus has given us a glimpse of its imagery and meaning from the very centre of the magic circle, when otherwise we should have to content ourselves with the superficial view of an outsider. As he shows it to us, the simplicity, beauty, and reverent feeling, cannot fail to appeal to everyone who has watched the silent majesty of a breaking day, whether on the sea or the hills or the widespread prairies.” This paean of praise ushers in the second day of the ceremony, the day devoted to celebrating the masculine qualities of virility and strength, typified by the Sun-Father. There is a charming personification of his Messenger as the Bright Ray which alights like a bird on the Lodge, then enters it from above and moves about within, touching for a moment the centre of life, the fireplace, and which, departing, rests as a bright gleam on the western hills. This ritual is in two distinct divisions, the one enacted as the Morning Sun approaches, bearing life and strength, the other as he withdraws in the evening, leaving with the people “those gifts which Tirawa sent him to bestow”. In the interval between is a cycle of songs, the first beginning, “Hark the sound of their wings”, which likens the noise and bustle of the Hako to a vast flock of birds, and continues with specific allusions to the master birds which are bound on the Feathered Stems. This second day is brought to a conclusion in the evening by a repetition of the Invocation to the Visions, with a stronger emphasis on the supernatural origin of the rites, and the promise that the revelations shall again be vouch¬ safed to the Children through the Hako. The third day, when the feminine forces are honoured, is very like the second in general plan, with the Dawn ritual as a prelude and the third and last Invocation to the Visions as its closing ceremony. The songs are to Mother Earth and to all which she brings forth to sustain the life of the people. “We sing. Behold here lies Mother Earth, of a truth she lies here to bring forth, and we give thanks that it is so; we give thanks for the fields of com, and for THE HAKO: AN INDIAN RITE 34i spreading trees and for the streams and rivers which flow over her. Of a truth we know that Mother Earth brings these forth by the power of Tirawa- atius, Father of All Things.’ “When these songs are finished, we make the smoke offering to Tirawa through the Mother Eagle Calumet, and then I, as Kurahus, sing the songs which teach the lessons of the birds to the Children, beginning with one about the nest where the eggs lie in safety. We learn from the birds that we must care for our children even before they are bom; that we must be cheerful and thankful for all that we receive; that we must protect and guide our families, and be faithful in storm and in sunshine, by day and by night. Through following these teachings we shall receive in full measure the gifts of the Hako. The words of these songs are few, but the story has come down to us.” When the Visions are all invoked for the third and last time, there is an especial summons to the shades of the Ancients, who are besought to come from their abode on high to give recognition to the Son; and furthermore to sanctify by their presence the rites which have already taken place, as well as those which are to follow on the fifth and last day, when the secret and most sacred part of the entire ceremony will be celebrated. “The Visions come in answer to our song; they hover over us and recognize him who has been made our Son, and we all rest and are quiet in their presence. As they depart to their dwelling place above, we give thanks in our hearts that they have come to us.” The departure of the Ancients ends the outer ceremonies. In them all the Powers in turn have been called to the Lodge; in response, the birds of the Hako have flown thither, the Visions have descended and entered, the Dawn and the Stars and the Day have brought their gifts, and throughout it all the abstract idea of the great creative forces in their cosmic aspect, has been firmly held in mind. There ensues a day of rest, after which the definite promises made by the Fathers to the Children must be fulfilled in a most sacred rite, which is care¬ fully concealed from all but the immediate participants. The mystic stirring of the Dawn birth, the brooding fruitfulness of Earth and Mother Eagle, the virile potency of Sun Father and the Man Eagle, and, above all thinking, the overshadowing spirit of Tirawa, are to be focussed and concentrated in the one person of a Chosen Child, a little son of the Son; through the investiture he will become the child of the tribe, the bearer of new life to the coming generations. This inner ceremony, which is the very heart of the drama, lasts only a few hours, beginning shortly after sundown of the fourth day with a review of the lessons already inculcated, which are summed up by the Kurahus as follows: “We have now made the four-times-four circuit of the Lodge. In the first circuit we have recollected Mother Earth, and the Com symbols; in the next, the Eagles which are messengers of the Powers above; in the third, the prayer and offerings of this ceremony, and in the fourth the Powers themselves, the 342 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY Mighty Power above, and all those which are with the Hako. Four times tour means completeness. The night is nearly over and the children leave the Lodge and go to their homes. At the first signs of morning, when Dawn is again coming to birth and all the creatures are beginning to stir with the life of the new Day, the Fathers rise and, taking up the Hako from its ceremonial rest, they march forth sing- ng o seek the Chosen Child. The song is the same one which we sang when I1Q T eTe t / lIlage and sought the Lod S e where the Son was awaiting us. We have been four days and four nights in that Lodge, singing the songs and performing the rites, and now we seek the Son’s own dwelling, that vve Sacred 0bjects t0 fireplace and there touch with them his niJd, that the promises we have brought may be fulfilled.” at ofT thlS dwelling of the Son th e group pauses, singing the last stanza, and ln Vi H a Par 5 ° f Warriors ’ a P ure ’y masculine element, storms into the anrftv, 10Ugh t0 capture and hold !t - shouting and recounting, all at one rifts from 3 T e m ° men 7 ’ the deeds of prowess and daring which are their special Sith rifk f ,r p Va ' ? 7 aS thC Babd 0f boasting dies down - the Hako itself, tTe hf ] P T 311 QulCt ’ 6nterS the P assa ge-way, and going straight to .as , b v 0 ;:R OWS , hlm ^ P ° WerS ° f endurance - wisdom, and fruitfulness; and lastly the Kurahus, holding the joined Calumets, one close-wrapped within the feathers of the other, touches him with Creative Power Thus encompassed with all the forces of life, the little creature is coaxed by a crooning song to move and take for himself the four steps which symbolize lifted t h T St f nCe; and stra, ghtway when he has complied, he is gently followed h .ri T ° f thC AndentS and borne to ceremonial Lodge the T d "I, , K , U , rahUS and the Hako g rou P. all singing together. Within the Lodge the child is seated in the Holy Place, while the members ramre themselves ,n their prescribed positions, forming a close circle about him and this inner group is in turn shielded from all observation by a curved Irie of warnors which stretches from wall to wall, shoulder touching s^ouWer so at their robes, reaching the ground, form a solid screen. The face of the r,r,.„rr^r ssr •***<££ the heart of the Mother Eaele' so 1 ny * lr ' asl ' ,ea * l,ers takm from a spot near toft e,o„ d , o, Tiraa^ ^*. THE HAKO: AN INDIAN RITE 343 Eagle is tied in such wise that it flutters over his head without ceasing as if it were indeed the ever-moving breath of the spirit. Thus completely invested with the sacred signs, the Child is made to gaze in silence upon his reflected image. The mirror prepared for the rite is the direct gift of the Earth Mother, for it is made of wood from her forests, fash¬ ioned into a bowl shaped like the inverted dome of the sky, and it is filled with water from her living streams. As he gazes upon its clearly reflecting surface, he is for a moment shown his own young visage blended and made one with the symbolic visage of Tirawa-atius, and immediately thereupon, the black covering which must veil the mysteries, is thrown over and about him. ‘‘Only Tirawa looks on them and knows all they mean. We do not look on them for they are holy.” Now, centred around the Holy Place of the hearth, circles are drawn at the Four World Quarters to represent the nests of tribal life and of kinship groups; ‘‘and as we draw these circles on the ground we think that Tirawa has made the Earth, where all the people live, quite round like a nest. If you go on a high hill and look about, you will see that the Earth touches the Sky on every side and that it is a circular enclosure.” Into each of the inscribed circles, the Child, freshly endowed with the life of Tirawa, is carried in turn and allowed to rest for a moment, while at his feet is laid an oriole’s nest containing certain symbolic objects. Thus he bears the good gifts of the Hako to his people. This act is carefully hidden from sight by an enshrouding robe, and no one but the officiating priest knows what is happening beneath it, ‘‘For no one knows when a bird lays its eggs or when a new birth takes place. Only Tirawa knows when life is given.” After the four requisite repetitions of the mystery, the Child is again seated on the Holy Place while an offering of incense is made by throwing sacrificial ointment and aromatic grasses on the glowing coals of the fire. Silently the participants watch the sweet-smelling smoke curl upwards until it is well on its way to Tirawa, and then the Kurahus waves the Hako Articles back and forth through it, and, with hands impregnated by the odour, strokes the Child. Thus he receives its blessing, and in turn the smoke as it rises will bear a witness of him to Tirawa. When the other members of the party in like manner have shared this benediction, all traces of the tribal nests and of the incense fire are painstakingly obliterated, and the Father bears the Child, still veiled, outside the door of the Lodge to watch the presentation of gifts. This is a joyous interlude; deeds of heroism are recounted and enacted, while two youths weave with indescribable grace and lightness the intricate pattern of an Eagle Dance, and one by one the Children lead up the ponies which are given to the Fathers in grateful recognition of the blessings they have brought. When all the presentations have been made, the group of inner participants once more and for the last time retires within the Lodge, and the Child is again carried to the Holy Place behind the fire. With gestures which follow iiiiiwourniLAL yUAKTERLY ?t h ° f Tlrawa ’ s breath - he is stroked with the Com Symbol and with the Mated Stems, while the Kurahus bows over him singing: “Breathe on him! Breathe on him Life thou alone can give to him!” “ThewhHr S thiS P . ar r °u f - the cerem0ny the aged Ir| dian said to Miss Fletcher: I Iave ieenT P ° t ^ ^ hidden fr ° m the P e0 P 7 means, ‘All that breath of Tirfwa g r T’ ^ Child ' haS been a P rayer *> call down the vou belonJt T ^ y ° U Hfe and strength and ^ teach you that IZtfn T- h T'~ that y ° U are his Child " and now I pray with all my face and Jllle tT and t0UCh with his breath the symbo1 of his I*?** a " the °t her symbols that are on the Child. This is a very solemn hrc^r We beheve . that Tlra wa, although not seen by us, sends down his breath as we pray, calling on him to come. tea« S VwJ 1 ” 5 S ° ng n ° W in Washin gton with you, I cannot help shedding Httle Chill ^ eVerSUn f U f ° re CXCept as 1 st00d looking down upon the httle Child and praying for him in my heart. There is no little ChiM v, that y ° Uar h e lT e Wntmga11 these things down that they may not be lost and ““"i - pracdsediii £ you. I an, pra) .i„ g for you t 10 “° d < ‘ OW " hk b,e * ,h “f ^uitfulne,,. Peace and'Secnrity^iinT'ZsInhe Ne,V tie ol kinship, “ e ^ li '- “ —* “ *»* s„ is f r b f ih? Fathers depart „„ ‘ ,e * S ‘ «“ oft„tnn“inrn,S“'Uv“Lr re and more ^ Acuity the wealth o£ ,h, Z^nTZt ‘ZZ * ^ ~ZZZ£ZZZT 7? « s inherent in and blue yel] „ 345 THE HAKO: AN INDIAN RITE impress of magic power; the very meaning of a song may lie in the fact that it has an eight-fold form or is given a four-times-four rendition; each prolongation of a syllable or change of rhythm is a necessity—for thus the mind is held one- pointed and concentrated in supplication, thus the High Powers are assured of unbroken attention. I have throughout sternly resisted the temptation to suggest parallels or interpretations, or in any way to interfere with the Kurahus’ straight-forward explanation, and I will end simply with his final words to Miss Fletcher, when at long last their joint task was finished. “During the days I have been talking to you, and during the days and nights that we have worked together, my heart has gone out to you. 1 have done what has never been done before; I have given you all the songs of this ceremony and explained them to you. I never thought that I, of all my people, should be the one to give this ancient ceremony to be preserved, and I wonder over it as I sit here. I think over my long life with its many experiences; of the great number of Pawnees who have been with me in war, nearly all of whom have been killed in battle. When I remember all the people of my tribe who have died during my lifetime, and of those in other tribes who have fallen by our hands, they are so many they make a vast covering over Mother Earth. I once walked with these prostrate forms; I did not fall but passed on, wounded sometimes but not unto death, until I am here to-day, doing this thing,—singing these sacred songs into that great pipe (the graphophone) and telling you these ancient rites of my people. “It must be that I have been preserved for this purpose, otherwise I should be lying back there among the dead.” All knowledge begins and ends with wonder, but the first wonder is the child of ignorance, the second wonder is the parent of adoration— Coleridge. A HINDU CHELA’S DIARY* From T he Path , Vol. I, Nos. 3, 4, 5, and 6, June to September, 1886. [In the month of December he arrived at Benares, on what he hoped would be his last pilgrimage. As much as I am able to decipher of this curious manu¬ script, written in a mixture of Tamil—the South Indian language—with Mahratta, which, as you know, is entirely dissimilar, shows that he made many pilgrimages to India’s sacred places, whether by mere impulse or upon actual direction, I know not. If he had been only an ordinary religiously disposed Hindu we might be able to come to some judgment hereupon, for the pilgrimages might have been made in order to gain merit, but as he must long ago have risen above the flowery chains of even the Vedas, we cannot really tell for what reason these journeys were made. Although, as you know, I have long had possession of these papers, the time had not until now seemed ripe to give them out. He had, when I received them, already long passed away from these busy scenes to those far busier, and now I give you liberty to print the fragmentary tale without description of his person. These people are, you know, not disposed to have accurate descriptions of them¬ selves floating about. They being real disciples, never like to say that they ar f* a manner quite contrary to that of those famed professors of occult science who opportunely or inopportunely declare their supposed ch£laship from the house top.— Translator.] .... Twice before have I seen these silent temples standing by the rolling flood of sacred Ganges. They have not changed, but in me what changes have occurred! And yet that cannot be, for the I changeth not, but only the ve il wrapped about, is either tom away or more closely and thickly Ch61a ’ S ri ary ” was reprinted in the Theosophical Quarterly of April and July, 1916- rue-"—»«« «■; friend tvho'cornmunicated "he™ t ter tous^IY “ ^ P °“ eSSi ° n - The introduct °^ •» * «» 346 A HINDU CHELA’S DIARY 347 folded roun d to the disguising of the reality Tf , since I began to use the privilege of IkmJ ‘ Y Y 11 s now seven months «... i c,™ „ u,.. tapTSe is • Eadiiim ' ,u.t law, which compe|! 'I bMk. I, w,e Karma, ,|, e faltered, and returned to the life even h r hat prevent e<l me. Had I this incarnation would have been sealed-TndV” P “ 1 ’ my filte Why? Happy W as I that I knew the silent d ^ W ° U d haVe Said nothin g- any loss of interest in my welfare but 1 Z° U ^ n0t have lndicated in him interference. Very soon seetoet■‘"""ted appeared exteriorly to be. Then the feelinv *7* that he Was not what he time so strong that four or five times I thn g £77 'f 0 3 behef within a short and begging him to reveal himself to me T** at his feet as I knew that I was quite imnure flT1 d7 if * ! h ° Ufi:ht that was useless, If I remained silent I thought that he tould W1 ’ th that secret - me worthy of it. I thought he must be t0 me whenever he found assumed that illusionary form But th 7? Hindu Ade P t wh ° had that he received letters from various relatives i H'ff ffiCUlty ar ° Se ’ f ° r 1 knew compel him to practise the illusion all^Z LteT** ^7 ^ this W ° U,d were ,n other countries, where he had globe, for some of those relatives gested themselves to me. ' a Vario ^ explanations sug- KunSla that he is some great Tndin '» 7^ my . onginal conception of talked with him since—although I fear I ' ^ tilIS sub i ec t I constantly ‘ h » '*■ wortI >y of their company “m! “""T Sl “" ”* b ‘ ■" direction. I always thought of retiring from u'° n ’7 a Ways been ir > this up to devotion. To Kunala I often expressed ,, h ' S W ° rld and P^ng myself study this philosophy, which alone can mS matTh & ° that 1 might then he usually asked me what I would d n 7 happy m this world. But of gaining my object I ^ He Said that « jungles with no one to guide me- that I "Tu 7 mg left aIone in the going into the jungles I could fall in withanAdef- l ° think that by to gain my object I should have to work in the ref^ ^ ' f 1 rea " y wanted I had met so many good men and himself also- a °T'l" ^ thr0ugh which whom I dare not mention by any other nam«’ " the Higher 0nes ‘ themselves would call me away from the W ’ Satlsfied mth they And when I foolishly asked him many timeTT^ “ d me in private ‘ addresses of some of those Higher Ones he sT'd 016 the names aad Brothers has told me that as yfu are so muc h^ft °"“ * '° ne of once for all that I have no right to rive , 7 016 1 had better tell you >1 y ou go on asking Hindus you meet wha^Tev k K° n ^ them ’ but might hear of them, and one of those ffigher O ab ° Ut the matter in your way without your knowing him Ld °n? perhaps tb row himself “ ““ lwo »< 348 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY to be ‘Raj Yogs.* He also said he had heard of a man who had appeared several times in Benares, but that nobody knew where he lived. My dis¬ appointment grew more bitter, but I never lost the firm confidence that Adepts do live in India and can still be found among us. No doubt too there are a few in other countries, else why had Kun&la been to them. In con¬ sequence of a letter from Vishnurama, who said that a certain X. 1 lived in Benares, and that Swamiji K. knew him. However, for certain reasons I could not address Swamiji K. directly, and when I asked him if he knew X. he replied: ‘If there be such a man here at all he is not known.’ Thus evasively on many occasions he answered me, and I saw that all my expecta¬ tions in going to Benares were only air castles. I thought I had gained only the consolation that I was doing a part of my duty. So I wrote again to Nilakant: ‘As directed by you I have neither let him know what I know of him nor what my own intentions are. He seems to think that in this I am working to make money, and as yet I have kept him in the dark as regards myself, and am myself groping in the dark. Expecting enlightenment from you, etc.’ .... The other day Nilakant came suddenly here and I met Sw. K. and him together, when to my surprise K. at once mentioned X., saying he knew him well and that he often came to see him, and then he offered to take us there. But just as we were going, arrived at the place an English officer who had done Kun 41 a a service in some past time. He had in some way heard of X. and was permitted to come. Such are the complications of Karma. It was absolutely necessary that he should go too, although no doubt his European education would never permit him more than half to accept the doctrine of Karma, so interwoven backward and forward in our lives, both those now, those past and those to come. At the interview with X., I could gain nothing, and so we came away. The next day came X. to see us. He never speaks of himself, but as ‘this body’. He told me that he had first been in the body of a Fakir, who, upon having his hand disabled by a shot he received while he passed the fortress of Bhurtpore, had to change his body and choose another, the one he was now in. A child of about seven years of age was dying at that time, and so, before the complete physical death, this Fakir had entered the body and afterwards used it as his own. He is, therefore, doubly not what he seems to be. As a Fakir he had studied Yoga science for 65 years, but that study having been arrested at the time he was disabled, leaving him unequal to the task he had to perform, he had to choose this other one. In his present body he is 53 years, and consequently the inner X. is 118 years old. In the night I heard him talking with Kunala, and found that each had the same Guru, who himself is a very great Adept, whose age is 300 years, although in appearance he seems to be only 40. 2 He will in a few centuries enter the body of a Kshatriya , 3 and do some great deeds for India, but the time had not yet come. 1 1 find it impossible to decipher this name. 2 There is a peculiarity in this, that all accounts apparent age as forty only.— [Ed.J of Cagliostro, St. Germain and other Adepts, give the 3 The warrior caste of India.— [Ed.J . f . ^ CS " day 1 ; ven r t Wlth Kun&la t0 look at the vast and curious temples w! £ f t by ° Ur wu efatherS- S ° me are in mins ’ and others ° nl y showing the now , WHat a dlfference between my appreciation of these buildings , wi h Kundla to point out meanings I never saw, and that which I had father ^ 1Gm UP ° n niade so many years ago with my as thi rft P r •? h , e ^ S ' here ’ aIthough written in the same characters fuJdsh H ’ haS C w ‘ y Cen altered in SOme way by the writer, so as to rush clues meant for himself. It might be deciphered by a little effort, but must respect his desire to keep those parts of it, which are thus changed thWs rr tha t SOme matters are here jotted down relating to secret Scp c T aS ,i’ t0 . tHmgS that he desired should not be understood at a £n!'t h i WntC ° Ut What Sma11 P° rtion of ^ might be easily told without breaking any confidences. It is apparent that he had often been before to the holy city of Benares, and sight those r ^ ? 3 ? aCC ° f Pilgrimage f0r the religious. Then, in his sight, those famous temples were only temples. But now he found, under roll r f °A Kunila, that every really ancient building in the whole stone the svmbr C f ° nStrUCted with the view to Pitting into imperishable fh * ’ JJ® Sy ™ b ° ls of a very anc 'ent religion. Kundla, he says, told him oeonlr of th 8 ? W6re made when no supposition of the ordinary people of those eras leaned toward the idea that nations could ever arise who ., 6 lgnorant . of the truths then universally known, or that darkness ould envelop the intellect of men, there were many Adepts then well known to the rulers and to the people. They were not ye/driven by inex^abt Ze to places remote from civilization, but lived in the 'temples, and while not ding temporal power they exercised a moral sway which was far greater wt T t° Vere ' g T ° f earth -‘ And they knew that the time would come when the heavy influence of the dark age would make men to have long for¬ gotten even that such things had existed, or that any doctrines other than the If thett ° n , m f enal nghtS ° f mine and tkine i had ever been held. Lv " 1KS T 6 , l6ft Slmply t0 either P a P er or P a PKus or parchment they would be easily lost, because of that decay which is natural to vegetate ZTTf r mbran % BUt St ° ne IaStS ’ in an easy c hmate, for ages. So Raihs 5 a ’ TTu °, th 7 hCre and th6re being reaI *y themselves Maha Rajahs, 5 caused the temples to be built in forms, and with such symbolic ornaments, that future races might decipher doctrines from them. In this, wllL^," w- very numerous. A, the head of the their previous conduct in a subordinatTstation TB l' ^ f ° r their ^^^tions, as shown by who rarely acted without “ “ d inferi ° r * the Espafla. lib. 2; lib. j. cap. p-Tcra Mo„ I„ d w / l n PnVate <Saha « u " »«'• * Nueva Mex. p. 66 .)-[ Ed.1 ' 2 °’ ^ * Cap ' cited b y Prescott in vol. ,. r 0 n ff . 5 King or Ruler. 350 THE0S0PHICAL QUARTERLY great wisdom, he says, is apparent, for to have carved them with sentences in the prevailing language would have defeated the object, since languages also change, and as great a muddle would have resulted as in the case of the Egyptian hieroglyphics, unless a key stone had also been prepared; but that itself might be lost, or in its own turn be unintelligible. The ideas underneath symbols do not alter, no matter what might be the language, and symbols are clear immortally, because they are founded in nature itself. In respect to this*part of the matter, he writes down that Kunala informed him that the language used then was not Sanscrit, but a far older one now altogether unknown in the world. From a detached sentence in the MS., it is shadowed forth that Kunala referred to a curious building put up many years ago in another part of India and now visible, by which he illustrated the difference between an intelligent construction and an unintelligent one. This building was the product of the brain of a Chandala, 6 who had been enriched through a curious freak. The Rajah had been told by his astrologers, upon some event occurring, that he must give an immense sum of money to the first person he saw next day, they intending to present themselves at an early hour. Next day, most unusually early, the Rajah arose, looked out of the window, and beheld this Chandala. Calling his astrologers and council together, and the poor sweeper into his presence, he presented him with lacs upon lacs of rupees, and with the money the Chandala built a granite building having immense monolithic chains hanging down from its four comers. Its only symbology was in the change of the chains of fate; from poor low caste to rich low caste. Without the story the building tells us nothing. But the symbols of the temples, not only those carved on them, but also their conjuncture, need no story, nor knowledge of historical events. Such is the substance of what he writes down as told him by Kunala. He says also that this symbology extends not only to doctrines and cosmology, but also to laws of the human constitution,-spiritual and material. The explanation of this portion is contained in the altered and cryptic parts of the MS. He then goes on]: . \ esterday, just after sunset, while Kun&la and X. were talking, Kun&la suddenly seemed to go into an unusual condition, and about ten minutes afterwards a large quantity of malwa flowers fell upon us from the ceiling. “I must now go to-and do that piece of business which he ordered done. My duty is clear enough, but how am I to know if I shall perform it properly. .... When I was there andafter I had finished my work and was preparing to return here, a wandering fakir met me and asked if he could find from me the proper road to Karli. I directed him, and he then put to me some ques¬ tions that looked as if he knew what had been my business; he also had a very 6 A low caste man. e.g., a sweeper. Such a building can now be seen at Bijapur, India.—[E d.J A HINDU CHELA’S DIARY 35i significant look upon his face, and several of his questions were apparently directed to getting me to tell him a few things Kun&la had told me just before leaving Benares with an injunction of secrecy. The questions did not on the face show that, but were in the nature of inquiries regarding such matters, so that if I had not been careful, I would have violated the injunction. He then left me saying: ‘You do not know me but we may see each other.’ .... I got back last night and saw only X., to whom I related the incident with the fakir, and he said that, ‘It was none other than Kunala himself using that fakir’s body who had said those things, and if you were to see that fakir again he would not remember you and would not be able to repeat his questions, as he was for the time being taken possession of for the purpose, by Kun&la, who often performs such things.’ I then asked him if in that case Kunala had really entered the fakir’s body, as I have a strange reluctance toward asking Kunala such questions, and X. replied that if I meant to ask if he had really and in fact entered the fakir’s person, the answer was no, but that if I meant to ask if Kun&la had overcome that fakir’s senses, sub¬ stituting his own, the answer was, yes; leaving me to make my own con¬ clusions. I was fortunate enough yesterday to be shown the process pursued in either entering an empty body, or in using one which has its own occupant. I found that in both cases it was the same, and the information was also conveyed that a Bhut 7 goes through just the same road in taking command of the body or senses of those unfortunate women of my country who sometimes are possessed by them. And the Bhut also sometimes gets into possession of a part only of the obsessed person’s body, such as an arm or a hand, and this they do by influencing that part of the brain that has relation with that arm or hand; in the same way with the tongue and other organs of speech. With any person but Kunala I would not have allowed my own body to be made use of for the experiment. But I felt perfectly safe, that he would not only let me in again, but also that he would not permit any stranger, man or gandharba, 8 to come in after him. We went to- and he.The feeling was that I had suddenly stepped out into freedom. He was beside me and at first I thought he had but begun. But he directed me to look, and there on the mat I saw my body, apparently unconscious. As I looked .... the body of myself, opened its eyes and arose. It was then superior to me, for Kunala’s informing power moved and directed it. It seemed even to speak to me. Around it, attracted to it by those magnetic influences, wavered and moved astral shapes, that vainly tried to whisper in the ear or to enter by the same road. In vain! They seemed to be pressed away by the air or surroundings of Kun&la. Turning to look at him, and expecting to see him in a state of samadhi, he was smiling as if nothing, or at the very most, but a part, of his power had been taken away .... another instant and I was again myself, the mat felt cool to my touch, the Bhuts were gone, and Kun&la bade me rise. 7 An obsessing astral shell. The Hindus consider them to be the reliquiae of deceased persons —(Ed.) 8 Nature spirit or elemental.— [Ed.] 352 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY “He has told me to go to the mountains of-where-and- usually live, and that even if I were not to see anybody the first time, the magnetized air in which they live would do me much good. They do not generally stop in one place, but always shift from one place to another. They, however, all meet together on certain days of the year in a certain place near Bhadrinath, in the northern part of India. He reminded me that as India’s sons are becoming more and more wicked, those Adepts have gradually been retiring more and more toward the north, to the Himalaya mountains. Of what great consequence it is for me to be always with Kun&la. And now X. tells me this same thing that I have always felt. All along I have felt and do still feel strongly that I have been once his most obedient and humble disciple in a former existence. All my hopes and future plans are therefore centred in him. My journey therefore to up country has done me one good, that of strengthening my belief, which is the chief foundation on which the grand structure is to be built. As I was walking past the end of Ramalinga’s compound holding a small lamp of European make, and while there was no wind, the light three several times fell low. I could not account for it. Both Kunala and X. were far away. But in another moment, the light suddenly went out altogether, and as I stopped, the voice of revered Kun&la, who I supposed was many miles away, spoke to me, and I found him standing there. For one hour we talked; and he gave me good advice, although I had not asked it—thus it is always that when I go fearlessly forward and ask for nothing I get help at an actual critical moment—he then blessed me and went away. Nor could I dare to look in what direction. In that conversation, I spoke of the light going down and wanted an explanation, but he said I had nothing to do with it. I then said I wanted to know, as I could explain it in two ways, viz: 1st, that he did it himself, or 2nd, that some one else did it for him. He replied, that even if it were done by some¬ body else, no Yogee will do a thing unless he sees the desire in another Yogee's mind . 9 The significance of this drove out of my mind all wish to know who did it, whether himself, or an elemental or another person, for it is of more importance for me to know even a part of the laws governing such a thing, than it is to know who puts those laws into operation. Even some blind concatenation of nature might put such natural forces in effect in accordance with the same laws, so that a knowledge that nature did it would be no knowledge of any consequence. “I have always felt and still feel strongly that I have already once studied this sacred philosophy with Kunala, and that I must have been, in a previous life, his most obedient and humble disciple. 10 This must have been a fact, or a tiia auiitcnue IS Ol 0 . ° me ucciaentai mina aelights much more n effects personalities when Trf'T' ir„ m SC ~' ng f ° r Causes ’ iust as many Theosophists have with persistency soug^ to kn^w -repugn no special or remarkable cYc, ~T wnen 1 hrst met him event. All my hopes and plans are centred 5 inT" COnnected with that can shake my confidence in him especially wh ' n ° ,b ' nc in the "'“rid acqnamtances tell me the same thinj“ S. sevOT1 «' Brahmin I went to the great festival nf n g thout Previous consultation, day looking in the vast crowd ofmef women^hTf ^ neariythe whole some of Kuniila’s friends, for he on^e told mT ^ Md me "dicants for bUt 1 found none who seemed toT" SUre that they were by the ghaut at the river side thinking thlt nerh ^ As 1 stood my patience, an old and apparently ve™ d hap ? 1 was Ieft al °ne to try sleeve and said; ‘Never expect to see any oL ^f Bairagee Packed my if they speak to you; it i s not wise to neer o,’ ?? be ready to answer fdWers of Vasudeva: look rather within ‘ ° f y ° UrSelf for the great tion. ^ to ask me for informa- i{ To " m °rrow I return to I_ especially of test evening! ’ Md\pof wjd’ *“ ^ WOrk of last week, and continuing work far into the aSTl'&L^ 00 my mat Iast "ight ’after sleepmg an hour or two when wfth a Srt r f u 1 had bee " olitude, and only the horrid howling of the iLcS%b° fi " d mySe,f in perfect The moon was brightly shining and I walked ^ JU " g ' e t0 disturb me - European-modelled house, threw it one! Tl, , T t0 the window of this ad departed, I began again on those palm"leav° ed T ° Ut Findi ng that sleep tap arrested my attention and I opened the Z ^ 1 had begun - a . sl,ndi ”8 tticrc. Once more on.xpecw' ’ 0yed Uh “ *» “ " y °” ^ Si. nnfi tun « d aw ., (To be continued) WHY I JOINED THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY I T is necessary to recall, from time to time, that the ways of Karma are marvellous and its designs past finding out. A member of The Theo- sophicaJ Society, passing a man in the street, may well say to himself with a sincerity as great as John Bunyan’s: “There, but for the grace of God, got. He cannot explain why a divine opportunity came to him and not to others whose virtues shine so brightly by contrast with his own. I can imagine someone asking: “ If you cannot explain why you joined the t Why 7 lte an ar , ticle about it? " I might reply: “ Because I have been asked to write an article about it but I think that there is a more satisfactory answer. J We are not automata. We were free to respond or not to respond to the opportunity of jommg the Society and of working for its objects One can fro^onrinTl e ’,i a ff trUthfUlIy ^ P ° SsibIe ' the sta 8 es thr «ugh which we passed onginal indifference to enthusiastic response. And since we are all X“ y ,K °' d of ” e s “ h >*»»« When I first heard of Theosophy my mood was not receptive, nor was anv Tm^ofTeTs th Th Ugh %*™«**» I bad Wends who were rp !?, ;* T /' T ThlS lndlffer ence, which was almost antipathy, can be readily understood. In those days I lived almost entirely in a maze of metaphysical speculation. I had some sort of notion that I was destined to become a Columbus among the philosophers, the discoverer of an unknown thST”HtoTIT „ F ” *1>*‘ teason alone I tended to disapprove of ,he theories and beliefs of other people. I was a college student at the time and interesting,^itTnot y^SisfS'e. “ Pr ° bl “”’ «“* negation While one half J+Z J , the bySS of consistent mental season, the other h„f“ * - •■orthodoS“oT.he‘to« n K "* h «•» various the Church Then I had “ ■ ear ^ a £ e * reac ted violently against and ^ 1 ,»*M«d in biLgy. and bigoted as the priests The nhil h f "° re m genera ^ as dogmatic them iere also pM Sts tot ? f h, ‘°” phers P 1 ^ ”» better, for some of great poets, tot ,t was so easy to demolish their thought- 354 WHY I JOINED THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 355 structures merely by questioning the premisses upon which they reposed. It is fortunate that I could not feel better satisfied with any of my own theories concerning the nature of the Universe. This description of my mental condition at college is not exactly clear, but it is at least as clear as was the condition itself. If I had remained at the university indefinitely, it is to be feared that the net result would have been nothing more inspiring than a disappointed and rather cynical professor. What may be called the science of Theosophy began to interest me after I had left college and come into contact with the world of American business, where one is held strictly accountable for one’s actions. I emerged from the shell of academic irresponsibility, and I did not like the atmosphere which I had to breathe. My mind continued—it still continues, for that matter— to agitate itself about the origin and being of the Cosmos; but it was forced to face other problems as well, problems suggested by personal suffering, by the compulsion of duty, by friendly or hostile relations with others. I read little theosophical literature, but I had a friend who bravely introduced Theosophy into our conversations. Some of the ideas which he presented seemed to ex¬ plain the very things which troubled me. I said to myself that if Truth could be discovered by the exercise of logic and common sense, Theosophy would, indeed, be a translation of the Truth. I began to read the Quarterly. Its articles and editorials upon the War interested and impressed me. I had liked the theory of Theosophy, and now I began to like the way in which students of Theosophy practised what they preached. Still I held back. How could these people really believe what they preached? It is one thing to recognize the objective beauty of a theory; it is another thing to have reasons for believing that a theory is true. Slowly I began to understand; understanding is still coming slowly. But the first dawning of this understanding brightened enough for me to ask permission to join The Theosophical Society. My faithful friend had always insisted that Theosophy was not a dogmatic system, and I had always smiled benevolently at him. Then it occurred to me that he might be right. I read and questioned more actively. There could be no doubt of it. The theory or science of Theosophy was a collection of hypotheses which were not to be blindly accepted by the student, bitf were to serve as a guide to experi¬ ment whereby he couldprove them for himself, as others had already proved them. Here was the revelation of the true and universal experimental method, the source of all sciences and the justification of the life which is religious in substance and not only in outward form. Here was a system of thought, explaining as profoundly as it can be explained—the nature of the Universe and of the human being which is born from the Universe, and I was invited to verify it through the development of my own nature. What could have prevented me from joining The Theosophical Society? R. S. CHHANDOGYA UPANISHAD PART III, SECTIONS 12-19 MAN LINKED WITH THE LOGOS T HE great inspiration of these instructions for disciples is the Logos, the Divine Mind, the Divine Voice, that sang a miraculous song, which brought the worlds into being: for the worlds are the song of the Divine Voice. As a song has many tones and many parts, so also has the mighty song of the Divine Voice. These tones are celestial powers, the great potencies that are revealed in the manifold miracle of the manifested worlds. As melody and harmony run through the song, so also with the divine song that breathes forth the worlds: melody, harmony, beauty everywhere. In the sections here translated, there is a further thought, of vital moment for the disciple. It is this: the ordered divine powers of the mighty Logos, each with its creative potency, are present, each one of them completely represented, in the being of the disciple. The divine powers which build the worlds, the divine powers which are the worlds, build him also, and are the very essence of his being. The disciple is taught to recognize these divine powers in himself, to know them, to use them. He is taught a further lesson which, when fully learned, will make him more than a disciple, will make him an immortal, potent and creative as the Logos is creative. The symbol with which the first of these Sections begins is the measure of the Vedic hymns called the Gayatri, a measure containing twenty-four syllables. One stanza, attributed to the great Rajput sage and seer, Vish- vamitra, belongs to the Third Circle of the Rig Veda. It may be rendered thus : “Let us meditate on the fair radiance of the divine Spiritual Sun, which may lead forward our souls!” Therefore, the Gayatri is here taken as the symbol of the Spiritual Sun, the Logos as singing the divine song. That Logos sings the worlds into being, and, having brought them into being, saves and upholds them by the sustaining power of the divine song. The Gayatri, as the song of the Logos, forms all the worlds, and among them this world which we inhabit, and which is a living manifestation of the potencies of the Logos; divine powers constitute it, mould it, maintain it. The same divine powers constitute and sustain the body of man; each of his bodily powers is made of the essence of the Logos. In the body of man are established the life-breaths, the living powers through which the Logos brings the latent Divine Thought into manifestation. 356 CHHANDOGYA UPANISHAD 357 The same powers of the Logos have in man another and higher, more divine manifestation “in this Heart which is in the man within; that is, in the Spiritual Man, whom the disciple seeks to become, the man who wears the vesture of the colour of the sun, the heir of immortality. The same powers reappear in this Spiritual Man, purified, spiritualized, glorified. But the manifested world, of which the body of man is a portion, far from including all things, is said here to be but a fourth part of the whole. What the four parts are, with their relation to the life of the disciple, has already been told in the Mandukya Upanishad. One part is manifested here; three parts are immortal in the heavens. Then follows the identification of Brahma, the Eternal, with the radiant Ether. The word so translated is Akasha, literally “Shining-toward”, and meaning both the extension of‘Space and all that fills Space; both the con¬ tainer of universal Life and the Life which it contains. The radiant Ether is, therefore, identical with the manifested Logos: it is the primal stage or degree of manifestation, within which, and through the powers of which, all subsequent manifestation takes place. So far concerning “the radiant Ether which is outside the man.” But there is also the “dim star within”, the first spark of the light of the Logos, and as the disciple watches, worshipping, the star grows until it is one with “the infinite Light.” The radiant Ether within the man is the same as the radiant Ether without, since both are the Logos. There are further stages: the radiant Ether in the man within, and the radiant Ether in the inner Heart, the Spiritual Man. Then follows a more detailed identification of the powers of man as powers of the Logos. As symbols of the powers of the Logos, are taken the Sun, the Moon, the Fire-lord, the Lord of fructifying rain, the Wind, which is the Great Breath. With the Sun is correlated the power of seeing, since through the Sun’s light we see, but that Sun is again the illuminating Logos, and the seeing is divine vision. With the Moon is correlated hearing, for the Moon, “the measurer,” measurer of the hours, the days, the weeks, the months, the lunar year, is here, as always, the symbol of Mind, since through mind we hear and through mind we measure. With the Fire-lord, magnetic fire, is correlated the voice, since through the voice the magnetic fire is manifested in the chanting of the hymns. With the Lord of fructifying rain is correlated mind, since by the right use of the mind, by fructifying thought, the hidden intuitions are made manifest and bear their fruit. With the Great Breath is correlated the upward-breath, the divine power of aspiration, which breathes upward and inward toward the inner Heart, that breath of aspiration which is the immediate presence of the Logos in the consciousness of the disciple. These five Brahma-spirits are the doorkeepers of the heavenly world: these same powers which appear in the outward life of the disciple, will, when they have been purified and awakened in the inner Heart, open to him the heavenly world. In his family a hero is born, who knows thus: the son, here as elsewhere, is symbol of the Spiritual Man, who is the reborn life of the disciple; that son is a hero, a strong son of the spiritual world. 358 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY And so the light that shines at the back of the heavens is the same as this light in the man within. Therefore, let the disciple steadily watch and wor¬ ship, until the star within becomes the infinite light. What is said concerning the inner enkindling, which is the seeing of that light, appears to refer to a mystical force which represents the creative power of the Logos. The hear¬ ing of it is set forth at greater length in The Voice of the Silence , in the descrip¬ tion of seven mystical sounds; the last tone is there likened to the dull rumbling of a thunder-cloud”, closely paralleling our text. When the disciple has “attained to peace”, he has reached a definite stage on his journey homeward. The flower of the soul has opened; he knows that the way has been found. Awakening to the presence of the Logos, let him reverence it as That from which all comes forth, That in which all shall finally be dissolved, That in which all breathes; That in which he himself lives and breathes, from which he has come forth, to which he seeks to return. The eloquent passage which follows needs no commentary: it is one of the truths which echo through all expressions of the greater Mysteries: its symbols, like “the grain of mustard-seed”, are universal. The simile of “the treasure-house containing the mid-world”, uses terms that are more limited, more conventional. Shankaracharya translates them somewhat as follows: the treasure-house is once more the inner Heart, the Spiritual Man, who is indeed the receptacle of many treasures, of many powers. This earth is the floor of the treasure-house, because the disciple enters the path while dwelling in this outer world, but the roof of the treasure- house is the heavens. The eastern quarter of the treasure-house is named the sacrificial ladle; that is, the instrument with which the offering of oil is added to the consecrated fire on the altar; the symbol is fitting, because the disciple begins with the oblation of his separate life in the great Life, which is the universal Fire. The southern quarter, named the overcoming, marks the disciple’s overcoming of the limitations and barriers of his former deeds, in many lives; it is a stage of purification. The western quarter stands, in universal symbolism, for the doorway to the world of the hidden sun; the “queen”, says Shankara’s commentary, is the light of the dawn in that hidden world. The northern quarter is named well-endowed, because it possesses many hidden treasures. Here again is universal symbolism: the kingdom of heaven is like buried treasure, like the pearl of great price. The sentence concerning lamentation for a son seems to take us back again to the simile of the birth of a hero: may the hero grow strong and increase in power, so that there may be no cause for lamentation. “In this invincible treasure-house I take refuge, through that, through that, through that”: this finds its interpretation in the later verses: “In the earth I take refuge, in the interspace I take refuge, in the sky I take refuge”; and this seems to be the equivalent of the sentence in Light on the Path: “Inquire of the earth, the air, and the water, of the secrets they hold for you. The development of your inner senses will enable you to do this.” When we come to the later sentence, “In the Fire-lord I take refuge, in the CHHANDOGYA UPANISHAD 359 Great Breath I take refuge, in the Sun I take refuge”, we are once again in presence of symbols for powers of the Logos. The three Vedas are symbols of the records in which a knowledge of these powers is contained. “Man, verily, is sacrifice”: here again we have a picture of the path of the disciple, with the graded stages through which he passes on his way to the final victory. The beginning of the way is the morning sacrifice. Through this he must press forward, letting no obstacles hinder him, to the attainment symbolized by the midday sacrifice. Again he presses forward to the third sacrifice, finally completing the last stage of his journey as a disciple, to the attainment which is to make him more than a disciple. At each stage he must be indomitable, invincible, letting nothing afflict him or daunt him. For the symbolism of the four parts of the Eternal we must go back again to Mandukya Upanishad , where the four parts of the Eternal are detailed. Finally, we come to the great cosmic symbol of the world-egg, the signifi¬ cance of which seems to be, that the birth of a universe, the birth of a solar system, the birth of a child, and the birth of the Spiritual Man, all follow the same laws, and are manifestations, whether macrocosmic or microcosmic, of the same powers, the powers inherent in the Logos. The golden half of the covering of the world-egg is Spirit; the silver half is Matter. These are not two disjunct, adverse entities, but the two poles of the One. The new birth of the disciple obeys the same great laws. When he is reborn, there will come to him a great sound of rejoicing, filling him with joy, filling him with joy. THE DISCIPLE AS CHILD OF THE LOGOS The Gayatri, verily, is all that is here, whatever here has come into being. The Voice, verily, is the Gayatri. For the Voice sings ( gdyali) and saves (trdyate) whatever here has come into being. What, verily, this Gayatri is, that, verily, this earth is; for in it is estab¬ lished whatever here has come into being, nor does aught transcend it. What, verily, this earth is, that, verily, is this body in the man; for in it are these life-breaths established, nor does any transcend it. What, verily, this body in man is, that, verily, is this Heart which is in the man within, for in it these life-breaths are established, nor does any transcend it. That, verily, is this Gayatri with four parts, sixfold, concerning which it is declared by the Rig verse: So great is the might of This, And Spirit is still mightier; One part of That is all beings, Three parts of That are the Immortal in heaven. For that which is named Brahma, the Eternal, is that radiant Ether which is outside the man. That radiant Ether which is outside the man is the same, verily, as the radiant Ether in the man within. That radiant Ether which 360 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY is in the man within, that, verily, is the same as the radiant Ether in the inner Heart. That is the Fulness which goes not forth. Full Grace, which goes not forth, he gains who knows thus. Of it, verily, of this Heart there are five channels for the Bright Powers. That which is the channel of the East is the forward-breath, that is the power of vision, that is the Sun. Therefore, let him reverence it as fervour, as food to be eaten. Possessed of fervour and an eater of food he becomes, who knows thus. And so that which is the channel of the South is the distributive-breath, that is the power of hearing, that is the Moon. Therefore, let him reverence it as grace and splendour. Gracious, splendid he becomes, who knows thus. And so that which is the channel of the West is the downward-breath, that is the voice, that is the Fire-lord. Therefore, let him reverence it as the holy fire, as food to be eaten. Possessor of the holy fire, an eater of food he becomes, who knows thus. And so that which is the channel of the North, that is the uniting-breath, that is mind, that is the Lord of fructifying rain. Therefore, let him reverence it as glory, and as the brightness of dawn. Possessed of glory, of the bright¬ ness of dawn he becomes, who knows thus. And so that which is the channel of the Zenith is the upward-breath, that is the Great Breath, that is the radiant Ether. Therefore, let him reverence it as divine power and might. Possessed of divine power and might he be¬ comes, who knows thus. They, verily, these five Brahma-spirits are the doorkeepers of the heavenly world. He who knows thus these five Brahma-spirits as doorkeepers of the heavenly world, in his family a hero is bom. He gains the heavenly world who knows thus these five Brahma-spirits as doorkeepers of the heavenly world. And so the light which shines beyond this heaven, at the back of the whole world, at the back of all that is, in the supreme realms than which none is higher, that, verily, is the same as this light in the man within. This is the seeing of it, when through contact in this body he discerns its enkindling. This is the hearing of it, when, closing the two ears, he hears inwardly a rum¬ bling, a lowing, the sound of a blazing fire. Therefore, let him reverence that as seen and heard. Worthy to be seen and heard he becomes, who knows thus,—who knows thus. All this, verily, is the Eternal. Having attained to peace, let him reverence it as That from which all comes forth, That in which all is dissolved, That in which all breathes. And so, of a truth, man is formed of Will. According as a man’s will is in this world, such on going forth from this world he becomes. So let him direct his will. Made of mind, with the life-breaths as body, radiant-formed, whose imagi¬ nation is true, whose self is radiant Ether, possessing all works, possessing all desires, possessing all fragrances, possessing all essences, encompassing CHHANDOGYA UPANISHAD 361 all this world, unspeaking, unconcerned,—this is my divine Self in the inner Heart, smaller than a grain of rice, or a grain of barley, or a grain of mustard- seed, or a grain of millet, or the kernel of a grain of millet,—this is my divine Self in the inner Heart, older and mightier than the earth, older and mightier than the mid-world, older and mightier than the heavens, older and mightier than these worlds. Possessing all works, possessing all desires, possessing all fragrances, pos¬ sessing all essences, encompassing all this world, unspeaking, unconcerned,— this is my divine Self in the inner Heart, this is the Eternal. In that divine Self I shall completely come to birth on going forth from this world. Whose this truly is, can doubt no more. Thus of old spoke Shandilya, thus spoke Shandilya. The treasure-house containing the mid-world, with the earth as its floor, grows not old. Its corners are the four directions of space. The sky is its opening above. This treasure-house is the container of riches. In it rests all that is. Its eastern quarter is named the sacrificial ladle. Its southern quarter is named the overcoming. Its western quarter is named the queen. Its north¬ ern quarter is named well-endowed. Of these quarters the Great Breath is the offspring. He who knows thus the Great Breath as the offspring, laments not with the lamentation for a son. So I know thus the Great Breath as the offspring of the quarters. Let me not lament with the lamentation for a son. “In this invincible treasure-house I take refuge, through that, through that, through that. “In the Life-breath I take refuge, through that, through that, through that. “In this world I take refuge, through that, through that, through that. “In the mid-world I take refuge, through that, through that, through that. “In the heavenly world I take refuge, through that, through that, through that.” When I said, “In the Life-breath I take refuge,” the Life-breath, verily is all here that has come into being, whatsoever there is; in that, verily, I have taken refuge. And so, when I said, “In this world I take refuge,” this I said: “In the earth I take refuge, in the interspace I take refuge, in the sky I take refuge.” And so, when I said, “In the mid-world I take refuge,” this I said: “In the Fire-lord I take refuge, in the Great Breath I take refuge, in the Sun I take refuge.” And so, when I said, “ In the heavenly world I take refuge,” this I said: “ In the Rig Veda I take refuge, in the Yajur Veda I take refuge, in the Sama Veda I take refuge.” Man, verily, is sacrifice. Of him, four-and-twenty years are the morning oblation. For the Gayatri measure has four-and-twenty syllables, and with 362 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY the Gayatri is celebrated the morning oblation. With this oblation the Bright Powers called the Vasus are correlated. The life-breaths, verily, are the Vasus, for they uphold all that is here. 4 Should anything afflict him in this division of life, let him say: “Ye life- breaths, ye Vasus, let this morning oblation of mine be continued until the midday oblation. May I, the sacrifice, not be cut off in the midst of the life-breaths, of the Vasus!” He arises thence, he is freed from ill. Then of him four-and-forty years are the midday oblation. For the Trish- tubh measure has four-and-forty syllables, and with the Trishtubh the midday oblation is offered. With this oblation the Bright Powers called the Rudras are correlated. The life-breaths, verily, are the Rudras, for they bring lamentation to all that is here. Should anything afflict him in this division of life, let him say: “Ye life- breaths, ye Rudras, let this midday oblation of mine be continued until the third libation. May I, the sacrifice, not be cut off in the midst of the life- breaths, of the Rudras!” He arises thence, he is freed from ill. Then of him eight-and-forty years are the third oblation. For the Jagati measure has eight-and-forty syllables, and with the Jagati the third oblation is offered. With this oblation the Bright Powers called Sons of the Sun are correlated. The life-breaths, verily are the Sons of the Sun, for they take all that is here. Should anything afflict him in this division of life, let him say. Ye life- breaths, Sons of the Sun, let this third oblation of mine be continued to the full life-span. May I, the sacrifice, not be cut off in the midst of the life- breaths, Sons of the Sun!” He arises thence, he is freed from ill. Knowing this in the olden times Mahidasa Aitareya said: “So why dost thou afflict me, since I shall not go forth because of this!” He lived a hundred and sixteen years. He lives a hundred and sixteen years, who knows thus. Mind, verily, as the Eternal let him reverence: thus with regard to the Self. And so with regard to the Divinities, radiant Ether is the Eternal. This is the twofold instruction, with regard to the Self and to the Divinities. That, the Eternal, has four parts: voice is a part, life-breath is a part, seeing is a part, hearing is a part; thus with regard to the Self. And so with regard to the Divinities: Fire-lord is a part, Great Breath is a part, Sun is a part, the Spaces are a part. This, verily, is the twofold instruction, with regard to the Self and to the Divinities. Voice, verily, is a fourth part of the Eternal; this through the Fire-lord as its light gleams and glows; he gleams and glows with glory, with splendour, with holy fire, who knows thus. Life-breath, verily, is a fourth part of the Eternal; this through the Great Breath as its light gleams and glows; he gleams and glows with glory, with splendour, with the holy fire, who knows thus. Seeing, verily, is a fourth part of the Eternal; this through the Sun as its CHHANDOGYA UPANISHAD 363 light: gleams and glows; he gleams and glows with glory, with splendour, with holy fire, who knows thus. Hearing, verily, is *a fourth part of the Eternal; this through the Spaces ®..^ S , h ^ ht / ear " S a " d glows: he gleams and glows with glory, with splendour, with holy fire, who knows thus. is this S ° lar L ° rd ’ V6rily ’ ‘ S the Etemal; this is the instruction. Its expansion Non-existence, verily, was this world in the beginning. It became existence • it came to birth; it took the form of the Egg; it lay quiescent for the measure :ie n r,r h : : oLTg s oE ed in twain; these two parts ° f the sheu — the - t J he ^ hich was silver ’ that is this Earth; the half which was golden, ItV the Heavens; what was the Chorion, that became the mountains- what was the Amnion, that became cloud and mist; what were the veins hese became the rivers; what was the liquid contained within, that became me ocean. to h"i S V hat r hiCh TT t0 birth is that Sun - Toward that, thus coming There L aTtb! T tnum P hant song - all beings and all desires arose, sone Iff11 Sun s rising, at every return, a great sound of triumphant song, alJ beings and all desires arise. honeM^’t th r kn °m ing this ’ reverences the Sun as the Eternal, there is the fillfng hto wi,h7„ y * i ”“ ”“ nd °' him W. C. J. A ever take too large a place in what yon do. gether forgotten in every one of our deeds. —Plus. God has the right not to be alto - I ON THE SCREEN OF TIME Student seemed worried. “What has become of our unexpected \ isitor of the last ‘Screen’?” he asked. “I was afraid she might have read your description of her as an 'awful Accident’, and have been offended.” “Not a chance in the world”, the Recorder replied. “She never reads. She said so, and that she prefers to ‘pick up’ information by asking questions, such as those she asked you. Probably, by now, she has floated into an enthusiasm for Dutch art or for Bahaism.” No , said the Historian, “the Student impressed her greatly. I heard of her a few days ago. She had been to a tea party, and had announced that obviously he was a reincarnation of St. John; that the Philosopher had been Dante and the rest of us on the same scale. She knew all this because, as she said, she had been Marie Antoinette! Poor little elemental!” Poor httle nothing”, the Philosopher exclaimed indignantly; “we are the people to be commiserated, though it is the Work that really suffers. Just as hkelv as not, she will be saying in a week or two that we told her about our past incarnations, but, if she prefers to keep the credit of her absurd discoveries , those to whom she ‘reveals’ them will undoubtedly infer the same t ing, and that we must be idiots and worse to have stuffed her thistle- down head with such nonsense.” Curious how every worth-while movement attracts that sort of pest” the Engineer commented. “They are not wicked,-just silly. There were ATonl 1 B ’ S time| 3nd 1 HaVe knOWn Jud * e to hide them A strong light in darkness attracts moths, and I suppose Theosophy fascinates such people on the same principle. Then, following the bent of their own natures they select the unimportant, the personal, the trifling, from the great body of truth they encounter, and pass these around as a child holds up a new toy for the admiration and envy of other children. Sometimes it’s astrol ogy, sometimes the Tarot cards; more often, the most ordinary kind of gosl about the ways and doings of mutual acquaintances,-the sort of thing you meet with wherever common people forgather. And the one sin for winch even the newest student of Theosophy cannot be pardoned, is to be common 1 vTr theTorid 1 T ^ ^ Peasants, nSSj ° , the world ‘ sa]lors before mast, whose outlook on life was noble " „ld diE ? it y- th « <™« of thought rather than of reading- Ztt "LvT , 1 ‘ “■ A -thy loves his w<Jk, nat is to say, who treats it as something sacred, instead of as an excuse for -a^d ff° r T P nt haS paSSCd beyond the sta 8 e of having a common mind talk ’ 18 C ° UrSe 3 C ° mm0n mind that explains c h ea P interests and cheap 364 reading T he Art i* 1 bee " it has become a ‘best seller’ — strange both v ' Strange as u ma Y seem, tents, seeing that a ‘best seller’ usually is trarii Sn ^ ^ its COn ' to make people think, and can hardlv fail Dlmaet s book is intended that he suggests several admTrabt fsts S t£ ?° T f the point ls For instance: ‘If, at any moment! m "" '***”* ^" g ‘ is, or has recently been having an inflt name a great man who passing the verdict, ordinary, on the qualit^of 0 " y ° Ur C ° ndUCt ’ Y ° U wiU be «? «*» of ciiru%i yo ;ir fe rr “ d “ isi - thenes and you will see and positively touch as vvilh ! ' bo ° k ° n Demos - of a constant preference for great nab-int! « a h y °. r 0Wn hand the effect which journalism, politics, duelling and all tv thlnkers In an existence Forum might otherwise have made shallow ’ H ^ 7 effervescenc e of the uses the word ‘shallow’ as practically svno ' H ’. y ° u Wl11 notlce . Dimnet way of expressing ,he otdi "”>". A "«l» and women, mentally and conversational! de s out P u t of many men the spiritual plane, from on tat-ta, to be carried on just the same after daatt Tat ' tat - ta - Tat-tat-ta, Tat- save time by dropping the ta after the Tat ctST ’ P6rhaPS ’ that they ’ d to challenge himself under this head to d'isJ ? ly u every one . of us ought raise the level of our ‘bet ween-whiles’ n • u- VGr m what dlrecti °ns we can habits of thought and talk which are to nuf> g ’ ?? ^ ^ f ° r eVer of some “I believe”, said the Andentat tV P mildly - Very ordinary”, ophy, when applying Dimnet’s test to the" 4 ’ Students of Theos- constantly influenced by the thought of W ° U ' d feel that the y are though perhaps t they' however, are like the sun in the heavens -a hi! /,° n f antly ’ Masters, provided us with moon and stars also that n °u ,ght ’ and nature has our vision, we may still look up and Idore TtT^V^ disa PP ears from man, to think exclusively of Masters Po ,, . n0t bealt hy. f° r the average that there are only two Snds oTneoot ^ “ ay begin to ™ a gine the fact being that history and literature are i^Tof 1 h and Mas ters,—- to ourselves it should be one of our greatest dehghlT Wh ° Sesu P eri °rity in a general off-hand sort of way as one admits th f ™ cognize ’ not simply than America, but in detail and by name All of * A T h ff m ° re inhabit ants gallery of heroes,—men and women who tho 1 T Sb ° U d have our Private reflected something of the sun’s glory and by so dof SUnS ’ haVe nearly within the range of our comprehension * m0re ness tends to arouse the elements of greatness whiol atlon of great ' Love is creative, and to love nobilitv a* . h ch 16 atent within us. purpose of others, dead or living i, to crearl no ’* ™ V “ ied in «« life and 11 is 366 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY than a man like Faraday. The son of a blacksmith and apprentice to a bookbinder, Professor Tyndall said of him that he had an excitable and fiery nature, but, through high self-discipline, had converted the fire into a central glow and motive power of life, instead of permitting it to waste itself in useless passion . and Faraday had no incentive, such as we have, for his achievement, no understanding of Kama as a reflection of Buddhi, no knowledge of spiritual transmutation, no desire for discipleship. Do any of us accept ill- health as a handicap? It were surely wise, in that case, if we cannot hope to emulate the heroism of H. P. B., to remember what Darwin wrote to a friend: If I had not been so great an invalid, I should not have done nearly so much work as I have been able to accomplish.’ Plutarch’s Lives and Parallel Lives were once the companions of all educated men, not because the characters he portrays are always worthy of emulation, but because Plutarch’s own standards are invariably above the ordinary, while his criticism is shrewd, and his narrative, intensely interesting. Every student of Theosophy should keep the Lives fresh in his mind as part of his moral background. Partly, perhaps, because I am so painfully conscious of failure to use my opportunities as I might and should have done, I confess an intense ambition for members of The Theosophical Society. I want them to be distinguished everywhere by charm of manner, kindliness, evenness of temper, poise, good judgment; I want them to be recognized for their unconscious distinction, the result of lofty and detached thinking, with the purposes of Masters their centre of interest, not themselves; I want them to be able to handle affairs o the world with skill but with unconcern, as angels might swiftly and thor¬ oughly clean a room,—and disappear. I do not want them to "be cranks or fanatics, or sentimentalists, or to drag Theosophy into their conversation when it is not wanted, or for the purpose of dragging themselves into the lime-light; I do not want them to adopt an attitude of superiority to their neighbours, or to the ideas of their neighbours. Yet they should remember that the only way to impress the world is to be above the world (can a seal impress wax otherwise?), while never forgetting that the world, in these matters, is not easily deceived, and that the attempt to appear superior „ at once be recognized for what it is: proof of inferiority. Slow to take offence gentle in speech, restrained in laughter, incapable of mere chatter they will be worthy of respect and will win it. , !. mU T S f t Seei f t0 be P rea ching, but heaven knows I am trying to take it to . If one thing is certain, it is that words unsupported by honest effort not only count for nothing, but are harmful. rernlT ° f that he based his plans on the consideration of emote as well as immediate consequences; that he always looked beyond his own life-time for results; and that this habit accounted in part for the impression he gave of aloofness, and for the inability of most men who came into personal contact with him, to understand his'mental processes CoT sciously, or not, he was inclined to test all things by the perpetual ques^on of the boy-saint: How does this look in the light of eternity?’ Would not ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 367 the same attitude toward our own thoughts—and of course our words and acts—go far toward saving us from being wrapt up in personal and ephemeral concerns, and thus, from ‘the greater condemnation’ of being common?” "Your reference to H. P. B. reminds me”, remarked the Student, ‘‘that one of our editors handed me a copy of The Real H. P. Blavatsky , by William Kingsland, published by John M. Watkins in London, asking me to review it for the next issue of the Quarterly. I have not been able to do so, or even to read it through consecutively; but I think that our readers should be informed of its publication without further delay, as it is certainly the best and most complete book written about her so far. It is not perfect of course, but the author has honestly done his best to present the facts as he sees them. In an appendix he gives a critical analysis of the 1885 Report of the Society for Psychical Research,—the famous, or, rather, infamous Hodgson report. All the available sources are drawn upon in the account of H. P. B.’s life, the author deserving the highest praise for what was undoubtedly a labour of love. I regret that he did not confine himself to his subject, for his references to the Theosophical Movement and to Theosophy, show great lack of understanding. He speaks of ‘the stupendous disaster of the Great War’, and adds: ‘If the Theosophical Society had succeeded in its original intention, if it had become a living example of Universal Brotherhood [it has], the teachings of Theosophy in their scientific, philosophical, and spiritual aspects would doubtless have obtained a world-wide recognition and accept¬ ance [this is nonsense: Theosophy is for the few] such as would have made the Great War an impossibility.’ Nonsense piled on nonsense! It sounds as if he were a Pacifist, and it also sounds as if he believed, as the leaders of the so-called ‘ Back-to-Blavatsky ’ movement believe, that the Masters failed in their work through H. P. B., and that the Society which they founded, no longer represents them. He should read the Quarterly, and our Con¬ vention reports!” “Possibly”, the Philosopher interjected, “if he were to read the Conven¬ tion reports, he would be more convinced than ever that he is right, because it is obvious, from the extract you have read, that our attitude toward the Great War is the antithesis of his. My own belief is that it was the force liberated at our Conventions which led this country into the war. In any case, how anyone with the least understanding of H. P. B. can doubt what her attitude would have been, passes all comprehension. She, who was wounded nearly to death at the battle of Mentana in 1867; who was a warrior if ever there was one, would have been like a lion let loose on behalf of the Allies.” “Of course”, the Ancient agreed. “Further, if the teachings of Theosophy had gained universal acceptance in this country, we should have been in the war as soon as Germany invaded Belgium, instead of trying to play both ways until 1917. “Apart, however, from Mr. Kingsland’s obvious misunderstanding of basic Theosophical principles, his criticism of the Society is vitiated by the fact 368 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY *?• m ° St ^ nghsh pe °P Ie - he thinks of Mrs. Besant’s Adyar society as X:r, mg ; c east OUtwardly - the work of H - p - forgetting that The W O T P r| Ca Was founded in New York - was maintained there by lies to tS T k le " repeated approval, and has been conducted on the same toiler d >t y 7 ° Se ° Were ‘ brou S ht U P’> theosophically, by Judge, , - “ the P ur POses of the Founders. In other words, Mr. Kingsland clapTrap o/tLf "* **»■ He ^ been ™ Ied by «» noise and a tonish their f° , ' T f ° r many years seems to ba ve been to th s thev hal r rS .' 3 t0 P th6ir ° Wn nam6S bef0re the Public ' In T , " b y have “rtamly succeeded,-at the cost of prostituting the name meetTnTs L *° that * has ” ot even advertised its puS meetings, the original Society has steadily pursued its way, true to its Founders forming year by year, by a long process of Karmic section, that Nucleus nLrrcStlt^^ WhiCh the MaStefS ' f-mlhe S- To i true test either of progress or of servirp "it ^ insincerity. C,„ S/X s ”” ly f h ‘* r '^ ni ™ » This is an open challenge. 2 f theoso P hl cal, say as much? thropic, benevolent ^patriotiTlctiSies 1 ^unlTy 6 / 130 " 1 ! eligious ’ philan ‘ the effect is worse, if that were noZ hit t, X demorak ^ng, and that Theosophy is involved. One reason for thk ^ t° & CaUSe as that of cases, all such work begins as a self inrl 1 ’ ° U ^ ° f many ’ ls tbat > in most terms when a young man Z\ot T ^ U 18 easier to see * * those ««. His father’s KX ^ his “« *° he prefers to go to Paris to Hp™ * ^ ^ oes no ^ a ^ r act him. No; uplift the standards of the world™ PerhaT^ ° f ^ alues ’ : an artist who will and save for his benefit - perhaps he find ? h f & ° WS hlS P arents to skimp h.m. In any case he ^ ^ t0 that seems most pleasant rather than th L - rJ resistance.—the path Wha, wonder that, 5 ? °' h * r<1 lab “' “ d <* duty. •isinP his ar, dnrrn, spar, moments and SSHS SL W ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 369 learned whether his ‘vocation’ were real or fictitious. No power on earth can stifle a real vocation. Byron would have written poetry, perhaps better than he actually wrote, if, like Spinoza, he had earned his living making lenses- Fra Angelico would have painted, if, instead of being a Dominican Friar, he had been, like Byron, heir to an English title, or, like Bohme, had followed the trade of a shoemaker. Nothing in the universe can keep us from serving the cause of Theosophy, or The Theosophical Society, if we have a genuine desire to serve them,—neither poverty nor wealth, neither sickness nor sorrow Every act we perform, every pain we endure, every thought we think, can be turned into service of that cause; and not only into service, but into an ability to serve more perfectly,-into Adeptship of service. There are opportunities at every moment.” les .said the Student; ‘‘there are opportunities at every moment, in every direction. Yet I have heard members say, occasionally, ‘There is nothing I can do to help’, or, ‘I have tried, and it’s no use; I am always criticized: nothing I do is ever right.’ Well,-some people have a genius for lying down half way; others, an inability to see that their past performance might be improved upon, while all of us, without exception, in a certain part of our nature, harbour a resentment against being called upon to do anything at all. Is not tamas, as well as rajas, a common inheritance of the race t Then he quoted: “ ‘I wish I was a little rock, A sittin’ on a hill, A doin’ nuthin’ all day long But jist a sittin’ still. I wouldn t walk, I wouldn’t move, I wouldn’t even wash. I d jist sit down a thousand years, And rest myself, by Gosh.’ . " „ — w “wuucu, uuu tnat is one ol the secret LTf nf° £ m0St °J U + u a c d aCCOUnts for a g° od deal of the supposed inability to be of service to the Society. ‘‘Niiturally, not all of us can serve in the same way. Not every one is able to speak or to write. Yet there are those who could write, who are too azy to learn: they simply will not take the necessary pains. Do they suppose that those who now contribute to the Quarterly, were bom with some peculiar gift? In my opinion, one must learn how to think before one can learn how to write; consequently, no one ever learns to write at school or lf ! ge .j art _ thinking is not a ‘ required ’ course. It must be acquired, but nrifiMT 1 !: fe ’“ and0nly as the result of prolonged effort, of repeated but profitable failure, of keen desire to learn, of real self-sacrifice. After thirty or more years of practice, we begin to realize how poor our performance 370 THE 0 S 0 PHICAL QUARTERLY is, even though it may be ‘acceptable’. Still, to write acceptably, makes it possible to serve. “Even so, one is met with the rejoinder, ‘I have nothing to write about.’ And at that point I begin to lose patience. If you think Theosophy, all you need do, to find a burning topic, is to walk down the main street of your town, or, if you cannot walk, read the morning paper. The world is alive with topics. Every magazine you pick up, is a challenge to your Theosophy, sometimes by way of contrast, sometimes by direct contribution. For in¬ stance, a friend gave me a copy of The Yale Review (Winter, 1929). Glancing at it, I found an article, ‘The Real Scholar Gipsy’, dealing with the life, character, and doings of the younger Van Helmont. The writer of the article, Marjorie Nicolson, says of him: ‘There was not in Europe a more romantic figure, nor one about whom more traditions clustered. The essence of his attraction lay in his mystery. He had dabbled in chemistry, and was learned in esoteric knowledge; he had fought in battles, and beaten his way through outraged mobs that clamoured for his life; it was whispered that the mantle of his magical father had fallen upon his shoulders.’ Impossible to read it without a desire to learn more about him. Was he, or was he not, an Occultist? He was a friend of Henry Alore, the Cambridge Platonist; he was closely associated with the early Quakers—George Fox, William Penn, Lady Conway and others; he knew half the Princes of Europe. Even from this brief article, it is evident that he knew a great deal about the power of the imagination, the preliminary key to all occult forces. He applied it in his practice of medicine. His theory of pain gave him an experience which Christian saints and Bhakti yogis would understand, but which he produced deliberately and scientifically. He was suffering agonies from a broken shoulder, which doctors had tried to set and had made worse. He used his pain to demonstrate the truth of his belief that man’s imagination and will are supreme over his material trials. When he determined, he says, that the excruciating pain in his shoulder was ‘nothing less but my owne life, excited or inflamed for my good ... I began to love my pain’; upon which the writer of the article comments with unusual insight: ‘ Love , be it noticed; not merely disregard , or tolerate; he was no trimmer, this mighty hunter before the Lord!’ However, all that I am suggesting is,—an article for the Quarterly; a ready-made and ‘new’ subject; an intensely interesting field for further investigation. ‘Nothing to write about’! There are so many things to write about that ten lifetimes would not cover them. Here is another instance: a book catalogue with some cheap ‘remnants’; among them, one entitled Fra Paolo Sarpi: The Greatest of the Venetians\ by the Rev. Alexander Robertson, published years ago by Sampson Low* Mortified to realize that if I had ever so much as heard of this ‘greatest of the Venetians’, I had forgotten all about him, the next step was to buy the book, quite prepared to find that it would be waste of time to read it. Instead, it proved to be fascinating,—and yet another field for Theosophical investiga- ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 37i tion, yet another opportunity for a Quarterly article. Fra Paolo was born in 1552 and died in 1623; he was recognized universally as by far the greatest scholar of his century,—the greatest of its mathematicians, anatomists (he discovered the valves of the veins), theologians. With Galileo he invented the thermometer; he made profound studies of sound and colour, of pneumatics, hydrostatics, metallurgy, chemistry; he was the leader of his period in all these and in many other directions. Above all, he practically governed Venice, and, while a member of a religious Order, fought the Pope to a stand¬ still, carrying his country successfully through a period of national excommuni¬ cation, and forcing the Pope, finally, to bless officially what he had cursed officially. Paul V, the Pope in question, did his utmost, time after time, to have Paolo murdered, and once nearly succeeded; but the Friar politely, resolutely defied him, and won his battle by sheer weight of intellect, integrity, and saintliness. “He was a reformer within the Church,—a reformer of such extraordinary gifts that they appear to have been superhuman. Now it seems to me to be common sense that the Master in whose name the Christian Church exists (he did not found it, any more than Gautama founded the Buddhist Churches which have grown up in his name), must have tried often to bring it more nearly into line with his spirit and purposes, and that he must have wished to reform it from within, rather than divide it into sects. The Pontificate of Paul V (Camillo Borghese) was as bad as that of Paul III (Famese). This meant, not only need, but opportunity. Further, the Society of Jesus, although of recent origin, had already become political rather than religious, and had adopted such evil ways that Father Bobadilla, one of its founders, confessed to Fra Paolo that, ‘It never entered the mind of Father Ignatius Loyola that the Company should become what it now was’, and that ‘if he returned again to the earth he would not recognize it as his own’. In brief, the Church of Rome could hardly have been in a worse condition. Question: was Fra Paolo a ch£la of the Christian Master, specially incarnated to lead, as he did, the movement tending to limit the power of the Popes, and to prevent their interference in the civil affairs of nations, while doing what little he could to revive a belief in primitive and ‘ unclericalized’ Christianity ? Surely worth investigating,—and writing about!’’ Do you suggest that Fra Paolo may have been a ch£la consciously?’’ the Historian asked. “No”, the Student answered. “My understanding is that, in such a case, the ch£la would have to leave behind him, as part of the sacrifice involved, what I have heard described as ‘his occultism’. The Karma of the Church, and, in this case, the Karma of Italy, would not have permitted the incarna¬ tion of a conscious occultist to do public work. It is clear to me, also, that if a chela were given the mission which I am attributing, tentatively, to Fra Paolo, too much knowledge would have been as great a hindrance as too little. He was called by the most learned of his contemporaries, ‘ the oracle of his age’; but this in itself proves that he was within the reach of their 372 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY appreciation,—not beyond it, as a chela, aware of his ch£laship, would have been.” The Ancient had been listening with evident interest, and yet seemed glad when a pause gave him an opportunity to speak. “I am in complete sympathy with your position”, he said, addressing the Student. “The opportunities for service, both inner and outer, are endless. For any member of the Society to pretend otherwise, shows an entire failure to understand the elements of Theosophy. Yet, human nature being what it is, there is almost always a tendency, as I am sure you will agree, to think of outer work as an excuse for some slackening of inner effort; and the supreme need, now and always, necessarily must be self-understanding, self-conquest, Self- realization. For one thing, no article for the Quarterly is worth the paper it is written on unless based upon that foundation. Tremendous efforts are being made by the Lodge to counteract the stupefying effects of scientific progress,—stupefying, because all that science is doing is to dig deeper and deeper into matter, burying its own head in the sand like an ostrich, and dragging the attention of the world with it. The mere sublimation, or rare¬ faction, of the ‘matter’ with which science now deals, in comparison with the ‘matter’ of 1875, does not affect the situation in the least. The man who thinks all day long of pate de foie gras or of lobster k la Newburg, is no better off, spiritually, than a man who thinks all day long of corned beef and cabbage. ‘‘All of us must realize that the Great War was an outer manifestation of a crisis in the still greater war that is perpetually being fought for the souls of men,—the White Lodge against the Black. The outer war ended, super¬ ficially, in a victory for the Allies; but every intelligent person now realizes that the Allies, by their failure to stand on principle, and by their policy of expediency, gave away the fruits of victory from the day of the Armistice, and have done so increasingly ever since. They won the War but lost the Peace. Looking, however, still further beneath the surface of events, it becomes evident, as the Quarterly has persistently maintained, that the real outcome is still undetermined; for the White Lodge executed a vast flanking movement against the Black, by turning one of the achievements of the Black into a weapon against them. The flower of England, France, Belgium, gone, it was said, and said truly; many thousands of promising young Americans too. I have forgotten the exact numbers, but more than two million dead, including many of the best and bravest. Individually, they had died at the crest of their wave, so to speak; they had died in a fervour of service, of self-abandonment. Yet most of them had died young, with their normal life-span unfulfilled. Think! In one sense they would be ‘earth- bound ’, though, for their sacrifice, entitled to ‘ heaven What kind of heaven would satisfy them, except one compact of the spirit in which they died,—a heaven of service; and, at first, for most of them, earthly service. ‘Deprive the world of its best’, one can imagine to have been part of the aim of the Black Lodge. The White Lodge, turning defeat into victory, meets this evil by using the world’s best for the world’s salvation,—aiding and guiding and ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 373 organizing this great army of the dead, for the tit e»ves ^ „„st have , thonaand ways it 'break, trough•*£ “ Eternity _ "t^rr^« i object^ify™“«,“he' > a'rtwe; nf St Teresa of Avila, would leave them unimpressed and cold. world m w , hlC £ ™ learned by abnormal means that which every student of •"-‘"it; sris to exaggerate the importance of that particular artic • » toexaggerac f ^ subconscio us hunger after what the Bible typical o - c . . ,,_,, , • oUp sincere desire to penetrate f'.^ hih Ind altruistic order, who aided me in making a 1hyperd,m«ns»nal • •+ tinn T believe such hunger will always attract such forces. Hr We find what " e seek" as Emerson said. If we seek psychic expen- ence. we shall find that, and the spirit',', a# according to fhtd^s of the spiritual wo„W Ills-sssse ,. , 1 1 .Li- „ iT-i UTic crlrvrv. 374 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY think it sufficient to pray that the house might just ‘happen’. Time enough to pray when he has made a clear-cut picture in his mind of the kind of house he wants to build. Even then, he must put his plans on paper; must remove the rubbish from his site; must dig foundations; must pile brick on brick and stone on stone,—praying constantly meanwhile for strength and perseverance, but working, working , and of course obtaining all the advice and help he can from those who have built houses for themselves before him. Perhaps a better analogy would be the building of a Church or Temple, because that would, or should, eliminate the possibility of selfish motive, and suggest, furthermore, that divine guidance should be sought at every step of the way. Whether house or Temple, however, it is evident that he will never succeed unless he create a picture of a finished product which appeals to him as attrac¬ tive. He must see something in his mind’s eye which he personally and genuinely desires to make real. Otherwise he will lack enthusiasm, will lack love: and—must fail. But the old saying that appetite comes from eating, is as true of the spiritual world as it is of the physical. We can cultivate love just as we can cultivate an appetite or a taste,—a taste, let us say, for good instead of for trashy reading. In that case, we use our wills to make ourselves read the better sort of books, at first against the grain of our inclina¬ tion, but very soon in line with it. In exactly the same way, we can cultivate a hunger for discipleship, for ch£laship, for the service of Masters, for knowl¬ edge of the real. ‘ Do the deed and you shall have the power.’ Be a disciple for five minutes, and you will want to be a better disciple for ten; and if anyone says, ‘But I’m not a disciple; I’m full of faults and weaknesses and sins; how can I pretend to be that which I know I am not?’ my answer is: pretend often enough, and you will turn yourself into the thing you were not. Naturally I am not speaking of pretence in the eyes of others, or for their benefit: that sort of pretence is an abomination. I am saying that if a man knows he is selfish, he can make himself unselfish by forcing himself repeatedly to do unselfish things, for he will develop before long a preference for that sort of behaviour, and finally—unless he perpetually pats himself on the back for his ‘sacrifices’—finally, he will achieve a change of heart which will make unselfishness spontaneous and unconscious y for very clearly, no man who is conscious of his qualities, as yet possesses them,—until he reaches the further stage of looking down upon them, rather as we look upon the rind of an orange. “Knowledge is obtainable. Certainty can be gained. It is our own fault if we remain in darkness. It is worse than a fault, it is a sin, if we remain content with mental beliefs and shibboleths. Everyone of us ought to ask himself honestly, What do I know ?—remembering always that the test of knowledge is instinctive action; remembering also that it is the everlasting desire of Masters to share with us the certainties of their experience and Being.” T. The Roman Catholic Church in the Modern State, by Charles C. Marshall; Dodd, Mead and Company, 1928; price $3.00. Students of Madame Blavatsky’s efforts to break down the dogmatism, spiritual pride and self-sufficiency of Ecclesiasticism, will find this book exceedingly useful. So much Theosophic leaven has entered Western Christianity since her labours in that direction began with the second volume of Isis, that in Protestantism, where freedom of thought was, at least in prin¬ ciple, a possibility, there has been genuine and encouraging progress towards tolerance, with the acceptance of far wider views of Christianity, and of other religions as well. It is true, too often, unfortunately, that what Protestantism has gained in breadth it has lost in depth and in fervour, the result being a shallowness both of thought and of devotion that in many cases is pitiable. The Church of Rome, on the other hand, while it still produces saints, has maintained officially and steadfastly the traditional attitude, resisting for the most part that which is good in the intellectual spirit of the times, and actually entrenching itself still further in the prescriptive moulds by reason of this very resistance. Because in¬ dividual members of that Church often adopt a liberal and friendly attitude, the ordinary man has been led to believe that this probably reflected an increasing official liberality; but such is not the case. It will come as a surprise, doubtless, to many readers of this book—as it did to the reviewer—to discover how far the Church of Rome has actually gone in arrogating to itself, and to the Pope, all authority, wisdom and power. No Lodge of Masters training disciples in the ascending degrees of ch£laship; no generalissimo of an army in a beleaguered city, has claimed, and, where possible, enforced, such a right to blind obedience or such a monopoly of the truth. These claims are set forth in the more recent official Constitution, Syllabi, and Encyclical Letters of the Roman Curia, made accessible in translation; and they scarcely need either comment or analysis. Read however dispassionately, they form a remark¬ able indictment of any Priesthood claiming infallible Divine guidance and inspiration. The author is primarily concerned with the superiority of Democracy, and the will of the people, as an off-set to Roman Hierarchical Authority; but the student of Theosophy may reflect upon both attitudes—set forth temperately, justly, and with dignity in this book— and derive therefrom a truer appreciation of the ideals given us by the Maha-Chohan himself:—• 44 . . .an open mind, ... an eager intellect, an unveiled spiritual perception, a readiness to give and to receive advice and instruction, ... a loyal obedience to the behests of Truth”. Because of the recent political campaign in the United States, the suppression in Fr Le Sillon and L'Action Franqaise, the Encyclical Letter issued January sixth, 1928, 1 reconciliation of Church and State in Italy,—the attention of thinking people is towards the 44 Roman Question”; and members of the Society may wish to become better equipped to discuss the subjects involved by a first-hand acquaintance with the facts and documents, studied anew in the light of their knowledge of Theosophy. A. G. The Delphic Maxims in Literature, by Eliza Gregory Wilkins; The University of Chicago Press, 1929; price, $3.00. On the temple of Apollo at Delphi there were inscribed three maxims: 44 Know thyself”, 375 376 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY “Nothing too much”, “Give a pledge, or give security, and trouble is at hand.” The author has brought together in this one book all of consequence that has been written about these Delphic Maxims from their first appearance in literature until the present time. The book shows the probable original meaning of each maxim in the light of Greek literature itself, and man’s perennial interest in them which is still unabated. The sayings began to appear in extant Greek literature sometime during the latter half of the sixth century b . c ., and the first two recur frequently in the extant literature of the Greeks and Romans. There are fewer discussions of them between a.d. 500 and a.d. 1500; but with the coming of the Renais¬ sance Miss Wilkins finds them returning with a force that has continued down to our own day. Her history of these maxims through the ages leads not only into literature of almost every type, but into some touch with the thought movements which have characterized each period in the development of mankind. The book contains reproductions of some rare old prints. It is admirably printed on unusu¬ ally good paper. Readers of the Quarterly will find it of real value. It is surprising, how¬ ever, that the author, so widely read, should not have taken advantage of the light thrown by H. P. Blavatsky upon the significance of the first of the Delphic maxims, and that she does not appear to be acquainted, even, with the Cambridge Platonists, or with the innum¬ erable studies of the Hermetic philosophy which the writings of Madame Blavatsky called forth, and which have been published during the past fifty years. B. A Life of Cardinal Merrier, by Monsignor A. Laveille; translated by Arthur Livingstone; The Century Co., New York, 1928; price $2.50. Monsignor Laveille, who is Vicar-General of Meaux, and a compatriot of Cardinal Mercier, has given us in his book a warm and intimate picture of the man whom Marshal Foch called the “outstanding figure of our time;” and he has succeeded in doing two special things with admirable skill. He has shown us first, that the dominant militant note which, in later life, won for the great Churchman the title of "The fighting Cardinal”, was already evident in the character of the boy, and that this instinct for a bold attack of every difficulty is traceable from the time when, as a young student at the Academy of St. Rombaut in Malines, he had his own way to make, up through the years of fierce struggle for the revival of Thomist thought and the foundation of the Institute of Philosophy at Louvain; again in meeting the prejudices which were rife, and the failures which tested his mettle in connection with the Seminary of Leo XIII. “To head frontwards” was one of Cardinal Mercier’s favourite expressions, and he never failed to be true to its spirit. As a second point, Monsignor Laveille throws into high relief the true secret of Cardinal Mercier’s wide-spread personal influence. It was his unaffected and “fundamental good will to all men”, which gave him an instant and profound understanding of everyone he met; it gave him also the power, by his instinctive and great hearted sympathy, to call out what was best in a man's nature. This power to awaken what¬ ever of the best was latent in others, arose also from his own strikingly unconscious humility, which drew all hearts to him. It is said that when elected Archbishop of Malines, he was the only one then living who was genuinely surprised. Most of us already know of Cardinal Mercier’s fearless and resolute defence of the people of Belgium through the long and terrible years of the German occupation. Anyone, however, wishing to have a deeper insight into the great soul from which sprang the many intrepid acts with which those years were filled, will receive a flood of light by reading Monsignor Laveille’s most interesting book. T. D. What is Man?, by John Henry Clarke, M.D., and Leopold Salzer, M.D.; published by John M. Watkins, London; price 35. 6 d. The publications of John M. Watkins are always welcome. Long experience has proved that, with rare exceptions, they are valuable contributions to Theosophical literature; and although What is Man? cannot rank with such “spiritual delights” as The Path of the Eternal reviews 37; “ *7»y John Bland-Sutton, whose standi as CL ™tenahsm of Sir Arthur Keith and Sir in matters which are no more withfn their oroviCC th !r, an entlre| y fictitious reputation cem or responsibility of b“"For Jr bng are the con- whose experience taught him years aeo that h ,1 * P yS1Cla " of mtcrn ational reputation, ««■ •> SST X;£££“*£«' 1 T' “ “ Paracelsus with approval as declarine that “everftb- ■ lhght of God ' and he quotes and may come to his consctusness and ^ * the UmVerSe reflects itse,f in Man. himself, to know the Universe.” Dr. Clarke . C, T! C ' 0, ! snes ® enab,es man ; when he knows his convictions; an avowed believer in the fi ' f ”* ’ '< * Tbeoso P blst Wlt h the courage of Who looks for the caus Jof thiTs L the ° f nature ^P«tual, astral, etheric- acts upon the conviction "that everythin? If 6 rather than ln the visible world, and who hfe. is the materialized thought of ml ' " US m nationa, ‘ <** aad Personal allowance for their prejudices This for inst™ • a- f any , ’ lt would be wiser to make body itself is the gLt^ofmyS« •! d “ ly . for " the f ™”; “The physical and corporeal state the very essences which * , are co “ tamed m a condensed, solidified and this is the secret of ‘The Philosopher’s Stone™” SUbS * ance of the s P iritual man, ment as the following (though without in the least undeTstandfnTitL-rr^ 1 * State ' 1 vw! y a 1 d n<>t " SingUneSS that we must Iook find esfenfial UmVv” h rT^ ^ the Philosopher’s Stone is to invite their ridirnlp k* 7 ty ’ but to mentl °n means. ClF ndlcule ^because they think they know what it T. Creative Prayer by E. Herman; James Clark & Co., London, 1928- price $2 so ^ ats rcr rr ^ •» view of the writer is refreshing in that she talL hi f P bll °s°phy of prayer. The point of instead of “watering down" her thesis to make if °f the htgbest P Iane possible; and she insists upon raising her readers to the highest thatch ^ ^ T° °J the man in the street - more common, but the rarer forms of praver ‘CTL* tHem ^ " U is n °t the ~r.g., the spasmodic, instinctive cj Cneed-are iXcL Y “T!* a ^ It is as unfair to measure prayer by them as to huW I f f arr f ted development, and observing an invalid. Not the frenzied crv of suddeL ^ of the human b ° d y from of faith, is the normal attitude of the praying soul Not'the Ut ^ ff™’ trustful committal . whose child is spared, but the apparentlv unansuw * ai J s wered prayer of the mother the classic instance” (pp. 34 - 5 ) Ce pravLtZ ^ ° f ° Ur ^ in the Gard cn, is may add, Masters. The pettiness of mind and heart of those™ ° f £’ Bts ’ mystics ' and w e satisfied with a self-constructed counterfeit has^eldom bee * , ^ Pray6r ’ ° r Who are and experienced treatment. Nowhere have we found ah f ad f , c ' earer than in this lucid prayer in terms which meet Madame Blavatskv's defin V b °° k LL m ° re nearIy P resents PRAVFR q n ji: f : . Udme blavatsky s definition in the Key: “We rail if- wrr t PKA YE R , and ,t is rather an internal command than a petition » (rst ed n L L There are chapters on “Prayer as Creative Enerev” “Tb» V? /' P ' Jl Discipline of Meditation”, “From Self to God” Jf ’.-L Mm ' Stry of Silence”, "The clearing away the misconceptions of the mni ' • \ 1 c . are conceive fl with a view to should be—as a complete expression of the whole mm ’ Li 6 P |acmg of Prayer where it ships. The discipline of prayeTis “c^ extenrive w,>b r^-f '.L bighestand ^-st relation- worth exactly as much—or as little_as the man I .1 •' ^ '• S ° rc Prayer * s ' ln tbe la st resort, obstinate, prejudiced, undisciplined mind his prayed will’suffer L Lb Wh ° PraVS h3S a " - “ - - - ‘ a 37 8 theosophical quarterly soul that is capable of acquiring wisdom. We are responsible, not only for our PjW for providing the background against which prayers can energize (PP- 3 - The admirable statement of the modem churchman’s self-imposed limitation p' y • average "good” Christian leads a life which is "reformed, but on the whole impotent (p. i 5 ^ "We are slow to realize that the so called religious world is still—the world (p. )• spiritual realm is not only the last refuge, but also the most .mpregnalMefotressoself- ll (P iS 7 ). “We must at all costs recover the splendid spiritual courage that casts life behind its' back, that puts self beneath its feet. There is no spiritual stwpowj ^thout life-long, unrelenting discipline” (pp. 144 - 5 )- “More spiritual failure-especally in prayer—than we like to think, can be traced to bodily slackness (p. 12). Before he is finished with this volume, the man in the street will be made to fee flat there is little use in his pretending to himself that conventional prayer m <*wch or at home ^ accomplish anything, and that if he really wish to join the Choir Invisible he must faceTacts and completely re-organize his scale of values. This book should therefore, be of spec al help to those who have been brought face to face with the fact that their own prayer ' U has been inadequate, and has failed to be the support they imagined that it should be times of stress. ^ q Le Retour Eternel et la Philosophic de la Physique , by Abel Rey, Professor at the Sorbonne; Ernest Flammarion, Paris, 1927. . . M. Rey defends “the idea that phenomena revolve in a cyclic fashion . His argument is rather technical, resting almost entirely upon the application of the “calculus of probabilities to the data of molecular motion and the kinetic theory of gases. However, his conclusions are clearly stated and are sufficiently general to interest the lay reader. He conceives of physical Nature as necessarily and eternally repeating itself. This concep¬ tion accords with the scientific comparison of the material universe to a machine. A machine is preeminently a cyclic phenomenon, a repeating instrument. But the man-made machine is not eternal, nor is it in any sense self-perpetuating. Its parts are worn away by rust and friction Above all, it cannot regenerate the power which it converts into mechanical energy. It is subject to Carnot’s law, to the “principle” of the degradation of energy. Certain hasty thinkers of the Nineteenth Century, taking the mechanistic symbolism too literally, assumed that the universe as a whole is equally subject to final and permanent degradation; that its average temperature is destined to fall ultimately to “absolute zero”; that it will ultimately be as dead and useless as an old steam engine. M. Rey contradicts this view by offering laboratory evidence of rebuilding processes visibly going forward in Nature. The so-called Brownian movement of molecular masses is a visible illustration of the conservation of energies within a system in a constant state of cyclic transformation. The universe has discovered the secret of perpetual motion. It is interesting that M. Rey tries to relate the idea of cycles in Nature with consciousness. Consciousness in itself, he believes, is not cyclic. It is more perfect than objective Nature, “because its end is present in itself, because it is not a closed cycle but a tendency, a progres¬ sion, which does not have to repeat itself” (p. 312). Manifested consciousness contemplates the cycles of matter. M. Rey does not consider the hypothesis that this contemplative activity may be a force causing matter in its successive cycles to assume forms which correspond to those which came before but which are not identical with them. Is it not an observable fact that the cycles of Nature are not always closed but are often drawn out and upwards into spirals? However, M. Rey concludes his work with a statement which illustrates both his own appreciation of values and the general change of heart in so many men of science since 1875. “The law of the eternal return in the objective universe is the externalization of the inward intuition of our eternity: ‘Sentimus et experimur nos aetemos esse’ ” (p. 316). One recalls the saying of Plato that “time is a moving image of eternity”. S. L. fd92*\ QUESTIONS rsw ANSWERS Question No. 343-— Is it necessary to accept all Masters in the sense that the Master Christ said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life"? Answer.— We are not sure just what the questioner means by, “Is it necessary?” Neces¬ sary for what purpose? It is not necessary, for instance, even to believe in the existence of Masters, to become, and to remain, a member of The Theosophical Society in good standing. Familiarity with the ideas expressed in theosophical writings will, however, very soon make belief in Masters a logical necessity to any open-minded man. Many students of Theosophy believe in the fundamental unity of the universe; that there is one Self common to all men, and that the Masters are the complete and perfect embodiment of this one Self. (“ I and my Father are one.”) True growth is growth toward union with this Self, the Supreme Spirit This can only be accomplished by the aid of that Spirit itself, which reaches us, not directly, but through the Master on whose ray we may be. This Divine Spirit is the Way, the Truth and the Life. The Masters are the incarnation of it, represent it, and transmit it to those on their ray, each one of them thus becoming to those on his ray, the Way, the Truth and the Life. As stated above, however, it is not “necessary” to believe any of this to be a member of The Theosophical Society in good standing. J F B M Answer. As I understand it, each individual, becoming an accepted chfila, would realize that his own Master was the Way, the Truth, and the Life in the fullest sense; otherwise he never could have arrived at chflaship. I should think that in a more limited sense, this might also be true for the same individual in his relation to “all Masters” in so far as they are all integral parts of the Lodge, and must therefore share the common Lodge consciousness with the particular Master in question, but in this sense only. The chela’s Path is his own Master m the most literal interpretation, and could not, save indirectly, be found in or through an- other Master. ^ ^ Answer.— The Lodge of Masters is a Brotherhood working in harmony for the salvation of the human race as a whole, to whom, as our “Elder Brothers”, we owe reverence, loyalty, devotion, and, above all, gratitude for their unceasing efforts to aid mankind; but the “Way” to the Lodge for each individual lies through the particular Master upon’ whose ray that individual happens to be. Most of us in the West are probably upon the ray of the Christian Master; many in the East are upon the ray of some Eastern Master, as, for instance, Krishna, who, speaking as the Logos, said to Arjuna: "Set thy heart on Me, thy love on Me, sacrifice to Me, bow down to Me, thus joining thyself to Me in union, and bent on Me, thou shalt come to Me.” Answer.— It would seem that for every individual human soul one Master is “the Way the Truth, and the Life”. This may be the Master Christ or another. Every man must discover for himself the ray which transmits to his consciousness the Light of the Eternal. At the head of that ray is a Master, “the translator, so to speak, of the invisible world into the visible and the objective.” It is a reasonable supposition that all Masters act thus as translators, and that they help one another. It is inconceivable that any Master would ever 379 380 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY try to draw to his own ray the children of another Master. They are united by a common purpose, to lead men, along their several paths, to the consciousness of immortal being. “The Master-Soul is One." V. S. Answer. —For those who follow the Master Christ, for all those on his ray, it is clear that he is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. But not all are on the ray of the Master Christ; there are other Masters, other rays. Each Master is, for those on his ray, the Way. In that sense we must accept Christ’s saying as universally true of all Masters, although for many the way may be through him alone. C. R. A. Answer. What does the querent mean by “necessary”? Many members regard it as logical to believe that each Master is “the Way, the Truth and the Life,” to those “on his ray , but whether such a conclusion is necessary or not, each must decide for himself. C. M. S. Question No. 344. We read a good deal in Theosophical writings , especially those treating of the devotional aspects , of hidden desires—those which really guide actions which we may honestly think arise from very different motives; how can we uncover those secret and often unworthy desires? Answer. Only a man far along in spiritual development knows with certainty his own motives. It is one of the most difficult of tasks. A first step is to realize that our motives are always tainted with self to a greater or less degree, and are frequently contemptible. When we really believe that, we can begin to study the tricks and subterfuges by which lower nature deceives us. Many of these tricks are described by spiritual writers, whose books should be read with the constant effort to apply to ourselves what is said, searching in our experience for instances of each type of deceit described. It is often easy to see where others are deceiving themselves, and here again we should apply what we learn to ourselves. We may be quite sure that we are doing the same thing, perhaps in a different form. Lower nature is the same in all of us. Much may be learned by carefully watching our conversation. Why did we say what we did? How much can be traced to vanity, to the desire for appro¬ bation, for attention, for holding the centre of the stage? What was the reason for our criti¬ cism of others? Could it have been so low a thing as envy, to pull down another that by contrast, we might seem higher, in our own or others’ eyes? What impression were we trying to convey, and why? And so on. Mr. Griscom’s article on Self-Examination in the Quar¬ terly for July, 1918, will be found very helpful in this connection. J. F. B. M. Answer.— One of the most important exercises in the spiritual life is self-examination. Its value is incalculable, if honestly, courageously, patiently carried out. Self-examination is vague and too general unless confined to specific things. For this a Rule of Life is necessary to give a standard by which to measure. Short of Adeptship, there is no such thing as an absolutely pure motive; we should, therefore, strive constantly to purify our motives. As we live faithfully according to the light that we have, further light will be given for the next step; it is a matter of growth. The questioner might read, or re-read, with profit Mr Gris- Z. ° n «« Rule ° f Life " in the Januar >' ’ 9 « 5 . Quarterly, the con- uding sentence of which is; If we have some hidden fault, some rotten spot in the nature a Rule is sure to bring it to the surface, and this is as it should be, for we cannot hope to con- quer and get rid of an unknown fault or weakness.” toW N w!T'~ A beg r! ng C3n be made by selectin « one desire motive which we have been told we have or which it seems likely that we have, and then scrutinizing our actions for evidences of that motive. We should remember, however, that self-knowledge is a spiritual science, and that progress in it is in direct ratio to our progress in self-conquest, with all that *n th!rf S h 7 and , meditation make clear the next step or two upward; but only .t“ ” ‘* in ,h *j C. M. S. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 381 TJ:l h ir far is-*,*? in * , 5 , 5 ; 1 can see that hefar *- ** ** 4 *. L a may . do u b t whether, judged by ordinary standards, St. Francis did lead in his eves an/ 7 T®' r ° attain nearness t0 ‘heir Master, see their past lives The mode/ hin E 7 S '" ° f aCti ° nS Which 0thers regard as entirely harmless. oftenTaik 7 f f a’.r a 566 nothing moag in vani ‘y. self-indulgence or self-will that hk e UnderSta " d the deep contrition of the saint for any form of self-love, and assumes that h,s expressions of sorrow for past "wickedness” must refer to the gross sins thatThe biographer himself would call wicked. It ofte U n m !akU h t WeV T' ^ ° f ^ Frands to have been wiId ' * * not to be wondered at. It often takes time for the soul to awake after the shock of incarnation. Such a soul as St fives A ston^c * a' 8 !! ''T* ° f devel °P ment - and hence of power, in previous ncreasetthe dlc b T " 7 ^ 3 pOWerful Personality, which correspondingly increases the difficulty of mastering it. It follows that, up to a certain point greater develon- ment may mean a harder and not an easier task for the soul. St. Francis incarnated to per !*“ ° f T k ’ ^ needCd a POW6rful -trument" R o ? f ""„ t , . nhorseman about to start on an important mission requiring long fast riding. He selects a high-mettled thorough-bred who may run away with him at firft 2 J2? ^1 s a " d t e t n h dUranCe i Can h 6 ," 40 »*« the end, where a £££ would fail. It s not the avoidance of outer sm that makes spiritual development but the passionate, single-hearted love of one's Master, and the unremitting SgTto ^ out J. F. B. M. rr * ssirsst we are told that, as the inner nature grows strong a Dart of itc ctrpntrfL i ’ and 50 CaUSin£ j ’ USt SUCh an ebu " itioa - «• >recordedTn'the J. INDEX TO VOLUME XXVI E. A . All That We Have Is Not Ours; R. B. A R.B.A . Background for Ch61aship, A; Henry Bedinger Mitchell Cave . Cave of the Nymphs, The; Stanley V. LaDow . Chhandogya Upanishad; C. J . Contemplation and Morality; Stanley V. LaDow . S.C . Dante Sketches; Marion Hale . Eleusis; S. C . Fragments; Cave . Gris com, C. A . Hako, The: An Indian Rite, I, II , E. A . Hale, Marion . Hindu Chela’s Diary, A. (Reprint). Johnston, Charles . LaDow, Stanley V . Letters to Students; C. A. Griscom . Lodge Dialogues: M . NOTICE OF CONVENTION The Theosophical Society To the Branches of The Theosophical Society: 1. The Annual Convention of The Theosophical Society will be held at 64 Washington Mews, New York, on Saturday, April 27th, 1929, beginning at 10:30 a.m. 2. Branches unable to send delegates to the Convention are earnestly requested to send proxies. These may be made out to the Secretary T. S., or to any officer or member of the Society who is resident in New York or is to attend the Convention. These proxies should state the number of members in good standing in the Branch. 3. Branch Secretaries are asked to send their annual reports to the Secretary T. S. These reports should cover the significant features of the year’s work and should be accompanied by a complete list of officers and members, with the full name and address of each; also a statement of the number of members gained or lost during the year; also a record of the place and time of Branch meetings. These reports should reach the Secretary T. S. by April 1st. 4. Members-at-large are invited to attend the Convention sessions; and all Branch mem¬ bers, whether delegates or not, will be welcome. 5. Following the custom of former years, the sessions of the Convention will begin at 10:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. At 8:30 p.m. there will be a meeting of the New York Branch of the T. S., to which delegates and visitors are invited. 6. On Sunday, April 28th, at 3:30 p.m., there will be a public lecture. Tickets are not required for admission. Invitation cards will be supplied to all members, on request so Mitchell, Henry Bedinger . 18 , Notes and Comments. 1 Of Cabbages—and Kings; H. B. M . On the Screen of Time; T .34- Questions and Answers.95. Religio Militis; Henry Bedinger Mitchell . Reversed Triangle, A; 5. L . Reviews: Au Soir de la Pensde; Georges Clemenceau . Creative Prayer; E. Herman . Delphic Maxims in Literature, The; Eliza Gregory Wilkins. INDEX TO VOLUME XXVI His Decease at Jerusalem; Abraham Kuyper, D.D., LL.D . How the Reformation Happened; Hilaire Belloc . Life in the Stars; Sir Francis Younghusband .. Life of Cardinal Mercier, A; Mon signor A. Laveille . Living India; Savel Zimand ... Migration of Symbols, The; Donald A. Mackenzie . Nile and Egyptian Civilization, The; Alexandre Moret . Re tour Eternel et la Philosophic de la Physique, Le; Abel Rey.... Roman Catholic Church in the Modem State, The; Charles C. Marshall . To Be Near Unto God; Abraham Kuyper, D.D., L.L.D . What is Man?; John Henry Clark, M.D., and Leopold Salzer, M.D. R. S . ; . Symbionticism and the Origin of Species; R. E. T. Theory of Relativity, The; Henry Bedinger Mitchell Theosophy; Charles Johnston .*. R.E.T . T. S. Activities. Volunteer . War Memories, I, II, III; Volunteer . Why I Joined The Theosophical Society. Why I Rejoined The Theosophical Society; X. R .. Work; Younger Member . STANDARD BOOKS Blavatsky, H. P. Isis Unveiled, Vols. I and II.doth 810 .oo Key to Theosophy . cIot t 3>50 Secret Doctrine, The, Vols. I and II and Index .doth,' 20.00 Complete in one book, without subject-index volume, 7,50 Theosophical Glossary. . 8>50 Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge .. dotE 2*50 Voice of the Silence. .doth, .85, leather, i!so Cav£. Fragments,.V olume I. ^anla x 00 Volume II . ..board,, 1.00 Volume III.hoards 1 00 G?rard, John. Letters to Friends .board* 1.75 iHard, Katherine. Abridgment of the Secret Doctrine, .doth s.oo Johnston, Charles. Bhagavad Gita .Translated, annotated; cloth, 1*25 Crest Jewel of Wisdom, The .lim p le ^er. 1.75 From the Upanishads. ... !.;" ..n a S m Great Upanishads, The, Volume I..'doth ’ 1*50 Parables of the Kingdom, The.' * B0 S SuTRAS .Trandated, annotated; doth,’ 1.25 Jud£c, William Q. Bhagavad Gita ..Edited;' doth,' i.^ 'leather,' lioo ''Echoes from the Orient. >60 Letters That Have Helped Me, Volume I and II, each, .doth, i!oo Ocean of Theosophy . d °7 :XT Ke.VbflI ANJ i U ’t-K ^ OMSMS .;. doth . -76,' leather,' 1.50 Keightley, Archibald. Theosophy as an Influence in Life oaoer 20 LaDow, Stanley V. Plotinus. B “ Mitchell, Henry Bedinger. Meditation, Special edition, . 20 , paper’ iso Talks on Religion ....| p d p Theosophical Society and Theosophy, The . paper' ’20 Sinnett, A. P. Esoteric Buddhism. J Kn Occult World, The . "dott 2 ™ Walker, E. D. Reincarnation . * doth’ i re Idyll of the White Lotus.'.'.'X I'll Hu }£ e o 3 . 1 * 1- ’ V W i j.doth, ,75| leather, 1.50) lambskin, 1.T5 Through the Gates of Gold. 1<20 THE QUARTERLY BOOK DEPARTMENT, P* O. Box 64 , Station 0 # New York. Devotional; Bhagavad Gita; Crest Jewel of Wisdom; Fragments; The Great Upani¬ shads; Letters That Have Helped Me; Letters to Friends; Light on the Path* The Par¬ ables of the Kingdom; The Song of Life; Through the Gates of Gold; Voice of the Silence. Philosophical: Abridgment of the Secret Doctrine; Isis Unveiled; Key to Theosophy* Plotinus; Reincarnation; The Secret Doctrine; Talkson Religion; Theosophical Glossanr Transactions; Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. Introductory: Culture of Concentration; Echoes from the Orient; Esoteric Buddhism* Idyll of the White Lotus; Meditation; The Occult World; The Ocean of Theosonhv* The Theosophical Society and Theosophy. ** THE KNICKERBOCKER PRESS. NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. Wi)t ©jeosiopfjtcal Society Founded by b. P* Blavatsky at Hew Vork in 1675 HE Society does not pretend to be able to establish at once a universal brotherhood among men, but only strives to create the nucleus of such a body* Many of its members believe that an acquaintance with the world's religions and philosophies will reveal, as the common and fundamental principle underlying these, that “spiritual identity of all Souls with the Oversoul ” which is the basis of true brotherhood) and many of them also believe that an appreciation of the finer forces of nature and man will still further emphasize the same idea* The organization is wholly unsectarian, with no creed# dogma, nor personal authority to enforce or impose) neither is it to be held responsible for the opinions of its members# who are expected to accord to the beliefs of others that tolerance which they desire for their own. The following proclamation was adopted at the Conven¬ tion of the Society, held at Boston, April, 1895: “The Theosophical Society in America by its delegatesand members in Convention assembled, does hereby proclaim fraternal good will and kindly feeling toward all students of Theosophy and members of Theosophical Societies wherever and however situated. It further proclaims and avers its hearty sympathy and association with such persons and organizations in all theosophical matters except those of government and administration, and invites their cor- respondence and co-operation. “To all men and women of whatever caste,creed,race,or religious belief, who aim at the fosteringof peace, gentleness# and unselfish regard one for another, and the acquisition of such knowledge of men and nature as shall tend to the eleva¬ tion and advancement of the human race, it sends most friendly greeting and freely proffers its services. “It joins hands with all religionsand religious bodies whoia efforts are directed to the purification of men's thoughts and the bettering of their ways, and it avows its harmony there¬ with. 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 con-, firm a scientific basis for ethics . j * “And lastly, it invites to its membership those who, seek*’ tng a higher life hereafter# would learn to know the path to tread in this," Applications for membership should be addressed to the Secretary T. S., P. O. Box 64, Station O, New York.

The theosophical quarterly. Vol. 26

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