Few experiences lying about the threshhold of occult studies are more
perplexing and tormenting than those which have to do with the policy of
the Brothers as to what shall, and what shall not, be revealed to the
outer world. In fact, it is only by students at the same time tenacious
and patient--continuously anxious to get at the truths of occult
philosophy, but cool enough to bide their time when obstacles come in
the way--that what looks, at first sight, like a grudging and miserly
policy in this matter on the part of our illustrious teachers can be
endured. Most men persist in judging all situations by the light of
their own knowledge and conceptions, and certainly by reference to
standards of right and wrong with which modern civilization is familiar
a pungent indictment may be framed against the holders of philosophical
truth. They are regarded by their critics as keeping guard over their
intellectual possessions, declaring, "We have won this knowledge with
strenuous effort and at the cost of sacrifice and suffering; we will
not make a present of it to luxurious idlers who have done nothing to
deserve it." Most critics of the Theosophical Society and its
publications have fastened on this obvious idea, and have denounced the
policy of the Brothers as "selfish" and "unreasonable."
It has been argued that, as regards occult powers, the necessity for
keeping back all secrets which would enable unconscientious people to do
mischief, might be granted, but that no corresponding motives could
dictate the reservation of occult philosophical truth.
I have lately come to perceive certain considerations on this subject
which have generally been overlooked; and it seems desirable to put
them forward at once; especially as a very considerable body of occult
philosophical teaching is now before the world, and as those who
appreciate its value best, will sometimes be inclined to protest all the
more emphatically against the tardiness with which it has been served
out, and the curious precautions with which its further development is
even now surrounded.
In a nutshell, the explanation of the timid policy displayed is that the
Brothers are fully assured that the disclosure of that actual truth
(which constitutes the secret doctrine) about the origin of the World
and of Humanity--of the laws which govern their existence, and the
destinies to which they are moving on--is calculated to have a very
momentous effect on the welfare of mankind. Great results ensue from
small beginnings, and the seeds of knowledge now being sown in the world
may ultimately bear prodigious harvest. We, who are present merely at
the sowing, may not realize the magnitude and importance of the impulse
we are concerned in giving, but that impulse will roll on, and a few
generations hence will be productive of tremendous consequences one way
or the other.
For occult philosophy is no shadowy system of speculation like any of
the hundred philosophies with which the minds of men have been
overwhelmed; it is the positive Truth, and by the time enough of it is
let out, it will be seen to be so by thousands of the greatest men who
may then be living in the world. What will be the consequence? The
first effect on the minds of all who come to understand it, is terribly
iconoclastic. It drives out before it everything else in the shape of
religious belief. It leaves no room for any conceptions belonging even
to the groundwork or foundation of ordinary religious faith. And what
becomes then of all rules of right and wrong, of all sanctions for
morality? Most assuredly there are rules of right and wrong thrilling
through every fibre of occult philosophy really higher than any which
commonplace theologies can teach; far more cogent sanctions for
morality than can be derived at second-hand from the distorted doctrines
of exoteric religions; but a complete transfer of the sanction will be
a process involving the greatest possible danger for mankind at the
time. Bigots of all denominations will laugh at the idea of such a
transfer being seriously considered. The orthodox Christian--confident
in the thousand of churches overshadowing all western lands, of the
enormous force engaged in the maintenance and propagation of the faith,
with the Pope and the Protestant hierarchy in alliance for this broad
purpose, with the countless clergy of all sects, and the fiery Salvation
Army bringing up the rear--will think that the earth itself is more
likely to crumble into ruin than the irresistible authority of Religion
to be driven back. They are all counting, however, without the progress
of enlightenment. The most absurd religions die hard; but when the
intellectual classes definitively reject them, they die, with throes of
terrible agony, may be, and, perhaps, like Samson in the Temple, but
they cannot permanently outlive a conviction that they are false in the
leading minds of the age. Just what has been said of Christianity may
be said of Mahomedanism and Brahminism. Little or no risk is run while
occult literature aims merely at putting a reasonable construction on
perverted tenets--in showing people that truth may lurk behind even the
strangest theologic fictions. And the lover of orthodoxy, in either of
the cases instanced, may welcome the explanation with complacency. For
him also, as for the Christian, the faith which he professes--
sanctioned by what looks like a considerable antiquity to the very
limited vision of uninitiated historians, and supported by the
attachment of millions grown old in its service and careful to educate
their children in the convictions that have served their turn--is
founded on a rock which has its base in the foundations of the world.
Fragmentary teachings of occult philosophy seem at first to be no more
than annotations on the canonical doctrine. They may even embellish it
with graceful interpretations of its symbolism, parts of which may have
seemed to require apology, when ignorantly taken at the foot of the
letter. But this is merely the beginning of the attack. If occult
philosophy gets before the world with anything resembling completeness,
it will so command the assent of earnest students that for them nothing
else of that nature will remain standing. And the earnest students in
such eases must multiply. They are multiplying now even, merely on the
strength of the little that has been revealed. True, as yet--for some
time to come--the study will be, as it were, the whim of a few; but
"those who know," know among other things that, give it fair-play, and
it must become the subject of enthusiasm with all advanced thinkers. And
what is to happen when the world is divided into two camps--the whole
forces of intellectuality and culture on the one side, those of
ignorance and superstitious fanaticism on the other? With such a war as
that impending, the adepts, who will be conscious that they prepared the
lists and armed the combatants, will require some better justification
for their policy before their own consciences than the reflection that,
in the beginning, people accused them of selfishness, and of keeping a
miserly guard over their knowledge, and so goaded them with this taunt
that they were induced to set the ball rolling.
There is no question, be it understood, as to the relative merits of the
moral sanctions that are afforded by occult philosophy and those which
are distilled from the worn-out materials of existing creeds. If the
world could conceivably be shunted at one coup from the one code of
morals to the other, the world would be greatly the better for the
change. But the change cannot be made all at once, and the transition
is most dangerous. On the other hand, it is no less dangerous to take
no steps in the direction of that transition. For though existing
religions may be a great power--the Pope ruling still over millions of
consciences if not over towns and States, the name of the Prophet being
still a word to conjure with in war, the forces of Brahmanical custom
holding countless millions in willing subjection--in spite of all this,
the old religions are sapped and past their prime. They are in process
of decay, for they are losing their hold on the educated minority; it
is still the case that in all countries the camps of orthodoxy include
large numbers of men distinguished by intellect and culture, but one by
one their numbers are diminishing. Five-and-twenty years only, in
Europe, have made a prodigious change. Books are written now that pass
almost as matters of course which would have been impossible no further
back than that. No further back, books thrilled society with surprise
and excitement, which the intellectual world would now ignore as
embodying the feeblest commonplaces. The old creeds, in fact, are
slowly losing their hold upon mankind--more slowly in the more
deliberately moving East than Europe, but even here by degrees also--and
a time will come, whether occult philosophy is given out to take their
place or not, when they will no longer afford even such faulty sanctions
for moral conduct and right as they have supplied in times gone by.
Therefore it is plain that something must be given out to take their
place, and hence the determinations of which this movement in which we
are engaged is one of the undulations--these very words some of the
foremost froth upon the advancing wave.
But surely, when something which must be done is yet very dangerous in
the doing, the persons who control the operations in progress may be
excused for exercising the utmost caution. Readers of Theosophical
literature will be aware how bitterly our adept Brothers have been
criticized for choosing to take their own time and methods in the task
of partially communicating their knowledge to the world. Here in India
these criticisms have been indignantly resented by the passionate
loyalty to the Mahatmas that is so widely spread among Hindus--resented
more by instinct than reason in some cases perhaps, though in others, no
doubt, as a consequence of a full appreciation of all that is being now
explained, and of other considerations beside. But in Europe such
criticisms will have seemed hard to answer. The answer is really
embodied, however imperfectly, in the views of the situation now set
forth. We ordinary mortals in the world work as men traveling by the
light of a lantern in an unknown country. We see but a little way to the
right and left, only a little way behind even. But the adepts work as
men traveling by daylight, with the further advantage of being able at
will to get up in a balloon and survey vast expanses of lake and plain
and forest.
The choice of time and methods for communicating occult knowledge to the
world necessarily includes the choice of intermediary agent. Hence the
double set of misconceptions in India and Europe, each adapted to the
land of its origin. In India, where knowledge of the Brothers'
existence and reverence for their attributes is widely diffused, it is
natural that persons who may be chosen for their serviceability rather
than for their merits, as the recipients of their direct teaching,
should be regarded with a feeling resembling jealousy. In Europe, the
difficulty of getting into any sort of relations with the fountain-head
of Eastern philosophy is regarded as due to an exasperating
exclusiveness on the part of the adepts in that philosophy, which
renders it practically worth no man's while to devote himself to the
task of soliciting their instruction. But neither feeling is reasonable
when considered in the light of the explanations now put forward. The
Brothers can consider none but public interests, in the largest sense of
the words, in throwing out the first experimental flashes of occult
revelation into the world. They can only employ agents on whom they can
rely for doing the work as they may wish it done--or, at all events, in
no manner which may be widely otherwise. Or they can only protect the
task on which they are concerned in another way. They may consent
sometimes to a very much more direct mode of instruction than that
provided through intermediary agents for the world at large, in the
cases of organized societies solemnly pledged to secrecy, for the time
being at all events, in regard to the teaching to be conveyed to them.
In reference to such societies, the Brothers need not be on the watch to
see that the teaching is not worked up for the service of the world in a
way they would consider, for any reasons of their own, likely to be
injurious to final results or dangerous. Different men will assimilate
the philosophy to be unfolded in different ways: for some it will be
too iconoclastic altogether, and its further pursuit, after a certain
point is reached, unwelcome. Such persons, entering too hastily on the
path of exploration, will be able to drop off from the undertaking
whenever they like, if thoroughly pledged to secrecy in the first
instance, without being a source of embarrassment afterwards, as regards
the steady prosecution of the work in hand by other more resolute, or
less sensitive, labourers. It may be that in some such societies, if
any should be formed in which occult philosophy may be secretly studied,
some of the members will be as well fitted as, or better than, any other
persons employed elsewhere to put the teachings in shape for
publication, but in that case it is to be presumed that special
qualifications will eventually make themselves apparent. The meaning
and good sense of the restrictions, provisionally imposed meanwhile,
will be plain enough to any impartial person on reflection, even though
their novelty and strangeness may be a little resented at the first
glance.
--Lay Chela