Nothing answers questions like Theosophy can!:-The Key to Theosophy

The Key to Theosophy

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

1831 -1891

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The Key to Theosophy

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

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Who Are Those Who Know?

Q. Does this hold equally of ourselves as of others?

A. Equally. Aa just said, the same limited vision exists for all, save those who

have reached in the present incarnation the acme of spiritual vision and

clairvoyance. We can only perceive that, if things with us ought to have been

different, they would have been different; that we are what we have made

ourselves, and have only what we have earned for ourselves.

Q. I am afraid such a conception would only embitter us.

A. I believe it is precisely the reverse. It is disbelief in the just law of

retribution that is more likely to awaken every combative feeling in man. A

child, as much as a man, resents a punishment, or even a reproof he believes to

be unmerited, far more than he does a more severe punishment, if he feels that

it is merited. Belief in Karma is the highest reason for reconcilement to one's

lot in this life, and the very strongest incentive towards effort to better the

succeeding rebirth. Both of these, indeed, would be destroyed if we supposed

that our lot was the result of anything but strict Law, or that destiny was in

any other hands than our own.

Q. You have just asserted that this system of Reincarnation under Karmic law

commended itself to reason, justice, and the moral sense. But, if so, is it not

at some sacrifice of the gentler qualities of sympathy and pity, and thus a

hardening of the finer instincts of human nature?

A. Only apparently, not really. No man can receive more or less than his deserts

without a corresponding injustice or partiality to others; and a law which could

be averted through compassion would bring about more misery than it saved, more irritation and curses than thanks. Remember also, that we do not administer the law, if we do create causes for its effects; it administers itself; and again, that the most copious provision for the manifestation of just compassion and mercy is shown in the state of Devachan.

Q. You speak of Adepts as being an exception to the rule of our general

ignorance. Do they really know more than we do of Reincarnation and after

states?

A. They do, indeed. By the training of faculties we all possess, but which they

alone have developed to perfection, they have entered in spirit these various

planes and states we have been discussing. For long ages, one generation of

Adepts after another has studied the mysteries of being, of life, death, and

rebirth, and all have taught in their turn some of the facts so learned.

Q. And is the production of Adepts the aim of Theosophy?

A. Theosophy considers humanity as an emanation from divinity on its return path thereto. At an advanced point upon the path, Adeptship is reached by those who have devoted several incarnations to its achievement. For, remember well, no man has ever reached Adeptship in the Secret Sciences in one life; but many

incarnations are necessary for it after the formation of a conscious purpose and

the beginning of the needful training. Many may be the men and women in the very midst of our Society who have begun this uphill work toward illumination several incarnations ago, and who yet, owing to the personal illusions of the present life, are either ignorant of the fact, or on the road to losing every chance in this existence of progressing any farther. They feel an irresistible attraction

toward occultism and the Higher Life, and yet are too personal and

self-opinionated, too much in love with the deceptive allurements of mundane

life and the world's ephemeral pleasures, to give them up; and so lose their

chance in their present birth. But, for ordinary men, for the practical duties

of daily life, such a far-off result is inappropriate as an aim and quite

ineffective as a motive.

Q. What, then, may be their object or distinct purpose in joining the

Theosophical Society?

A. Many are interested in our doctrines and feel instinctively that they are

truer than those of any dogmatic religion. Others have formed a fixed resolve to

attain the highest ideal of man's duty.

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