Theosophical
Society President
Practical Theosophy
By
C Jinarajadasa
First
Published 1918
Based on
lectures delivered in
and
subsequently at the Annual Convention
of the
Contents
I Introductory
II Theosophy in the Home
III Theosophy in School and College
IV Theosophy in Business
V Theosophy in Science
VI Theosophy in Art
VII Theosophy in the State
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
THE value of Theosophy
as a philosophy of conduct lies in the fact that Theosophy approaches us every hour of the
day and in every occupation that is ours. While it contains universal truths
relating to the profoundest problems of existence, at the same time it tells us
luminous truths about the little things of our daily lives. Once a man has
grasped Theosophical principles, even if only intellectually, they will never
leave him. They are as inseparably woven into the fabric of all life as the
truths of evolution are woven into the fabric of Nature. A man may refuse to
live up to them, but he cannot separate himself from them; they dog his
footsteps in the home, in his business, in his amusements; they make a running
commentary on all that he sees and hears.
There are three fundamental Theosophical truths which transform a man's
attitude to life when he begins to apply them. They are :
1. Man is an immortal soul who grows through the ages into an ideal of
perfection.
2. The growth of the soul is by learning to cooperate with God's Plan
which is Evolution.
3. Man learns to co-operate with God's Plan by learning first how to
help his fellow men.
The first truth tells us that man is a soul and not the body; that the
body is merely an instrument used by the soul, and discarded, as at death, when
no longer fit for the soul's purposes. It also tells us of Reincarnation or the
process of repeated births on earth, by which method a soul grows by
experiences life after life, slowly growing thereby into wisdom and strength
and beauty.
The second truth tells us that the purpose of life is not contemplation
but action, and that each action of a man's life should be so guided by
understanding that it fits in harmoniously with the Divine Plan of Evolution.
The more a soul co-operates with the Divine Plan, the happier, wiser and
more glorious he becomes.
The third: truth tells us that each man is bound by invisible bonds to
all his fellow men; that they rise and fall with him and he with them; that
only as he helps the whole of which he is a part, does he really help himself.
Love of one's fellow men and altruism in the highest form are therefore the
essentials
of growth.
These fundamental truths are applicable to every occasion of life, and
the Theosophist is he who applies them. Let us see how they can be applied in
various departments of human activity.
CHAPTER II
THEOSOPHY IN THE HOME
WHAT is the family, in the light of these Theosophical truths ? It is a
meeting-place of souls to help each other towards perfection, No individual in
a family comes there by mere chance.
The elders and the youngers, the masters and the servants, the guests,
even the domestic animals, are in a family because each is to help and to be
helped. There is no such thing as chance in the Divine Plan; each individual in
the family comes and goes, is a member of it for a long or a short time,
because he can co-operate to further the welfare of all the other members of
the family. He has a definite role in the family, and his growth as a soul is
by playing that role to the fullness of his capacity. The home is a place for
growth, and the ideal home is where the conditions are such as enable each
individual member of it to grow swiftest towards his perfection.
There are several aspects of life in the home, and each is affected by
the principles of Theosophy,
What has Theosophy to say concerning the relation ]of parent and child, husband
and wife, master and servant, host and guest ?
First let us take the relation of parent and child. The child has a dual
nature, first as a soul and second as a body. It is only the body which the
parents provide; the soul of the child lives his life independently, and takes
charge of the body provided for him because he hopes to evolve through it. It
is only as regards the body of the child that the parents are the elders; but
the child, as
a soul, is the equal of the parents, and sometimes is wiser, more
capable, and more evolved than they.
Therefore the child does not belong to the parents; they are only
guardians of his body, so long as the soul cannot fully direct the body during
its infancy and youth. The phrase "my child" gives no right over the
destiny of the child; it gives only the privilege of helping in the evolution
of a brother soul. As the parents evolve by learning to help their fellow men,
one such is sent to them as their child.
During the years of infancy, the parent's duty is to help the soul of
the child to take control of his body so as to do his work. That soul comes
with many experiences of past lives; he is preparing himself for a vast work in
the distant future. He takes birth in a particular family because its
environment is both what he deserves and that ]from which he can get the
experiences he
needs for his growth. The duty of the parents is to help the child to
those experiences.
This is to be done first by surrounding the child with all that makes
for a healthy life; it is the duty of parents to know the rules of hygiene and
sanitation, so that the physical conditions for the child may be as perfect as
possible. Next the parents must provide an emotional and mental atmosphere that
helps the child. The soul of the child is not perfect; he comes from his past
lives where he has been both good and evil; tendencies of both are in
him as he takes his new birth. But the parents can help the child's growth by
recalling to his memory in his early years only the good and helpful experiences
and not the evil and vicious. It is true that the soul must eradicate the evil
in himself only by his own action; but others can make it easier for him,
especially when he begins a new life as a child, by throwing their weight on
the side of his good rather than of his evil.
Therefore the parents must understand the invisible power of thought and
feeling, how a thought of anger, whether expressed or not expressed, waters the
hidden seeds of anger which the child has brought from his past lives, and how
equally thoughts of love and affection starve out the germs of evil while they
feed the germs of good. A soul ] with both good and evil in him can
start his new experiment with life as a good child rather than as a bad one, if
the parents will foster in themselves their good thoughts and feelings rather
than the evil.
While the duty of parents is to surround children with all that tends to
goodness and beauty, the failure of a child to be good under those
circumstances is not necessarily due to the parents. The soul of the child may
find the seeds of evil in himself too strong for control; the parents can but
attempt to guide him, but if he will not be guided he must go his own way. The
soul will learn through his mistakes, and through the suffering resulting to
him and to others from them. If the parents do their duty, they have done all
the Divine Plan expects of them; they cannot make or unmake the nature of a
soul, for the soul himself must work out his salvation. A mistake is not the
calamity that it appears to be when we know that the soul has not one life only
within which to set right his error, but several lives. The Divine Plan gives
the soul as many opportunities as he needs, till he finally grows into strength
and virtue.
Therefore no parent need blame himself, if he has done his duty, because
his child does not respond to ideals of virtue. The opportunities that the
child refuses to take will come to him again, though only after he has been
taught by pain to grasp them. What the ]parents must always do under these
circumstances is not to think of the soul by his failures, and so
increase his weaknesses, but to think of the soul by his virtues, and so
strengthen them.
In the training of children, one important question is how to make a
child do the right thing and not the wrong. Unfortunately, civilization
hitherto has believed that some kind of corporal punishment is inevitable as a
part of the method. While parents have the duty of training a child, they have
no right whatsoever to force him ; the excuse that punishment is good for a
child is not really borne out in the light of the fullest facts. It is true
that in early years the child body is very largely an animal intelligence
overshadowed by the soul nature, and that many of a child's activities have
little or no direct association with the soul; it is not the soul that eats and
drinks, is pettish
or obstinate, or is made happy with toys, or laughs when tickled.
This animal side of the child does indeed often require curbing; but any
kind of outward pressure by corporal punishment, while it may achieve the
intended result, brings about also a certain coarsening of the child's vehicles
which makes them more obstructive to the spiritualising influences of the Ego.
The higher nature of the child, represented by his latent emotions and
thoughts, has in childhood ]great sensitiveness; if proper care is taken, a
fine and happy emotional nature and an open and intuitive mentality can result
for the child as he grows up. Harsh treatment of any kind coarsens his finer
vehicles, however much it may temporarily check the crudities of the physical;
and repeated shocks of this kind finally coarsen and deaden that higher
sensitiveness which should be prominent in all men and women as a normal characteristic
of human beings.
The man who is thankful that he was made to be good by punishment does
not realize how much better he might have become, had a more rational system of
training been understood by those who had his young vehicles in their charge.
When parents and educationists realize that all the experiences of life
have not to be condensed into one brief lifetime; that the soul has an eternity
of growth before him ; that he has the right to make his own experiments in
life, so long as he does not hinder the growth of others; that each individual
alone is
responsible for the good or evil that he may do; that others are
responsible for him only as they are his brothers and fellow men ; then we
shall have a saner outlook upon this matter of child welfare and training, and
there will be little difficulty in arranging methods of child discipline which
will curb the child's
animal nature in ways that ]are not derogatory to his higher nature as a
soul.
When we come to the relation in the family as between husband and wife, Theosophy tells us that they are both
equal in the responsibilities and privileges which they have in life. What has
brought them together in this family relationship is a series of duties and
privileges which is called the Law of Karma, or the Law of Action and Reaction.
They do not meet for the first time in their age long existence, they have met
many times before and have "made Karma" between themselves; they have
also " made Karma " with certain other souls who may come to them as
their children and dependants. It is this karma, which they owe to each other
and to those that shall surround them in the home, that brings two souls
together as husband and wife.
Often this karma brings with it the blossoming of affections and
sympathies; in such a case we have the ideal marriage. But it may well happen
that, after two people have been brought together, the karma between them
produces phases of
unhappiness. In both conditions, it is the Divine Purpose that they
shall get to know each other in their Divine natures, and discover their common
work, which is indeed a part of the great Divine work. For while souls can
discover each other through love, yet if they will not through love, life
forces them
to discover through hate; for hate that repels in the beginning attracts
in the end. Men and women discover these mysteries of life outside the marital
relationship; but nevertheless that relationship has been planned as one mode
of discovery.
No relation gives such great opportunities for the discovery of
another's self and also of one's own self as this; and the man or woman
who uses these opportunities, when karma gives them, thereby grows in
spirituality and comes nearer the discovery of the great Self of God and all
humanity.
When this high spiritual purpose is recognized as underlying family
life, family responsibilities and privileges appear in a new light; the trivial
duties of the home have shining through them the light of Eternity. The birth
of children or their loss, the anxieties and cares of tending them and training
them, the joys
and the sorrows which they give, are all so many experiences leading to
the great Discovery.
The family is not a meeting-place of simple travellers who meet
for a few brief years, and then go their separate ways in eternity; it
is far more a theatre or concert hall where a drama or a composition is being
rehearsed, so that all the individuals may learn to perform their parts with
beauty and dignity for the delight of man and of God.
Not dissimilar too is the relation in the home between master and
servant. Usually where this relation exists, the servant is less evolved than
the master; he therefore appears in the family in order that he may be helped
to grow by an elder soul. We may engage a servant, but his coming to us is not
a matter of
chance; we may pay him wages, but our " karmic link" does not
cease with the money which we give him. The servant is the master’s brother
soul; he is usually the younger brother, but the monetary contract between them
should never be allowed to make less real the great fact they are brothers.
Servants come to us to be shown a higher ideal in life than they would
normally be aware of, were they not brought into association with their
masters. Neatness, method, conscientiousness, generosity, courtesy, fine
behaviour and
culture are examples of conduct which the master has to place before the
consciousness of his younger brother, the servant; but while we present to him
our example, we must not ask of him, since he is our younger brother, our
standard of achievement. It is our duty as masters to be patient and
understanding while we call out the best from our servants through a spirit of
willing co-operation. Many a virtue can be learned as a servant which, in a
later life of larger opportunities, will lead to great actions; and
those of us who are 1]masters, but who have not yet learned such virtues, will
need to return to life as servants to learn them.
Who toiled a slave may come anew
a prince,
For gentle worthiness and merit
won ;
Who ruled a king may wander
earth in rags,
For things done and undone.
The domestic animals who form a part of the family are not such
unimportant members of it as people usually imagine. The Divine Life that is in
man is in the animal too; but it is at an earlier stage and therefore less
evolved. But it is to evolve to a higher through contact with man. Man's duty
to his domestic
animals is to soften their savage nature and implant in them manlike
attributes of thought and affection and devotion.
Therefore, while the animal gives us its strength in service, we must
use it purposely to train it towards humanity, for
the animal will some day grow to man. If we bring out a dog's
intelligence by our training, it should not be used to strengthen his animal
attributes, as when we train our dogs to hunt. A domestic cat may be "a good
mouser," but it is not for that reason that God has guided him into the
family.
If we train horses, it certainly should not be to develop speed for
racing or hunting ; the service they give us should be rewarded by bringing out
of them qualities that more contribute to their evolution towards humanity than
speed.
(1)The general principle with regard to our relation to our domestic
animals is that they are definitely sent to us to have their animal attributes
of savagery as far as possible weaned out of them and human attributes
implanted in their stead, for
what is animal today will some day be man, as man today will some day be
a God ; and he serves evolution best who helps the Divine Life to move swiftly
on its upward way.
CHAPTER III
THEOSOPHY IN SCHOOL AND
COLLEGE
THERE are just now in the educational world many attempts at reforms;
all who have the practical duty of teaching and helping in the building of the
character of children are aware how unsatisfactory are the existing theories
and methods. The drift of these various reforms is clearly evident when we
approach
the problem of education from the standpoint of Theosophy. The existing theories start
with the supposition that the child is an intelligence which began at birth,
and that, when he comes to school, his mind is a tabula rasa; necessarily,
therefore, the aim of education is to give the child a knowledge which he does
not possess and to mould a character which is yet unformed.
These theories are still accepted as true, in spite of the fact that
every one who has had to teach boys and girls, and every parent who has had to
bring them up, knows by practical experience that children have definite
characters, as well as definite aptitudes, from their earliest infancy.
From the Theosophical standpoint, the first fact that, has always to be
kept in mind with regard to a child is that he is an immortal soul, and that
his appearance as a boy or girl is in order that the qualities latent in that
soul may unfold themselves through experience.
The second fact is that the visible world is only one part of a larger
world in which the child lives, and that all the time the child is being
affected for good or evil not only by what he sees
and hears, but also by the invisible atmosphere of the thoughts and
feelings of others. As an immortal soul, the child has already had many
experiences of life, and his present appearance as a child is only one of many
similar appearances in past ages. He has, therefore, known much about life, and
has already gained a
certain amount of experience of what to do and what not to do. This
knowledge, however, is largely dormant, so far as the child's brain is
concerned.
The true aim, therefore, of education is twofold: first, to call out
this latent knowledge in the child; he must be made quickly to rediscover such
principles of conduct as, in his past lives, he has tested and found were valid
for him; and that form of education is the best which enables the soul, working
through the
child's brain, to come swiftest to a remembrance of his past successes
and failures. The second aim in education is to bring the child 1 as quickly as
possible to a synthetic view of life; for no man or woman begins to be educated
until he or she sees life from some central standpoint.
In the general activities of life, we are apt to miss the mark, because
we permit divisions between our mental and emotional and moral worlds; and when
we thus exist in compartments, the resultant of our energies is always less
forceful than it might be if we lived as a whole. Therefore education must,
from the beginning, instill into the child the sense of a whole in life and
since he has already come to some degree of synthesis through his experiences
in past lives, the educationist should aim at bringing the recollection of this
synthesis swiftly, and at developing it to embrace a yet larger horizon.
This work of enabling a soul, through his child body, to come to his old
synthesis, has to be done in three stages, those of the Kindergarten, the
School, and the College; we shall now see what Theosophy has to say concerning education
in each of these stages.
The child is not merely the little physical body which we see; he is
also an astral body of emotions and a mental body of ideas. All the three
vehicles, mental, astral and physical, make up the child; and all three are
sensitive and require training and co-ordination. Each vehicle has a certain
vitality of its
own, quite apart from the commanding general 1vitality of the soul of
the child; and each has a rudimentary consciousness with likes and dislikes
which are not necessarily those of the soul of the child.
These subconscious streams of consciousness are pronounced during child
life, and they have to be kept within their proper bounds while the soul uses
the vehicles which give rise to them. Sometimes some of these subconscious
elements may be quite contrary to the nature of the child; the. physical body
of the child may be extremely boisterous or lethargic, because of the physical
heredity of the parents, but this need not mean, necessarily, that the soul
lacks either serenity or strength. Exactly similarly, each child's astral and
mind body have energies of their own to start with, quite apart from the energy
of the soul of the child
who uses the vehicles. Therefore, the principal aim in the Kindergarten
stage of education is to enable the child to get control of his vehicles; the
brain needs to be developed by muscular movements, the emotional nature by
feelings, and the mental by thoughts.
The work in the Kindergarten, as we all know, trains the child's body in
method and order and rhythm, and trains his brain centres to recognise the
concepts of colour, shape, weight, temperature, and so on. The deftness of hand
taught in
Kindergarten work reacts on the emotional and, 1mental nature of the
child, and such training is very necessary, so as to enable the soul to come
more swiftly to his synthesis. But we have to recognise that the child's
character is influenced not only by the objects he handles and by the shapes he
sees, but also by innumerably invisible influences; the lines and angles and
curves of the room in which he works, the colour of walls, and the
shapes of the physical objects surrounding him in his Kindergarten room, all
invisibly help or hinder him; every line in the objects around him, every shade
of colour, every
tone he hears has its influence on his mental and emotional natures; we
can help children or hinder them by the objects which surround them in their
Kindergarten life. Modern Kindergarten methods have recognised the value of the
handling of various objects by the child; but they have yet to recognise that
the objects themselves are continually, though invisibly, handling the child,
and that they are moulding him in the right way or warping him in the wrong.
The influence of the teacher upon the child, when viewed theosophically,
is far more than educationists now realise; for the child is influenced not
only by the visible teacher but also by that part of the teacher's nature which
is invisible. A sharp word or a bright smile from a teacher has, we know,
visible
effects; exactly similar, but far more powerful, is 1the effect of the
thought of the teacher. The true teacher must be equipped in educational methods
not only intellectually but also emotionally; and in the Kindergarten specially
is this essential, since the child's delicate astral and mental vehicles are
extremely sensitive to the thoughts and feelings of the teacher.
Without love for children and a keen interest in their ways no one has a
right to be a teacher; and this general principle is most important in the
Kindergarten, where children are given over to the teacher almost body and
soul.
Many improvements have yet to be made in the Kindergarten, but the
general principle underlying them all is that, while the child's three vehicles
are plastic, it is the duty of the teacher to bring to bear upon them not only
the visible but also the invisible influences, so as to bring down into the
child's
brain as quickly as possible the fuller nature of the soul.
After the child gains a certain amount of control of his vehicles in the
Kindergarten, in the next stage at school he has to gain the sense of Law. His
emotions are therefore now, to be more fully worked upon. Now the child is born
with an emotional nature which he has developed through many lives; the teacher
has not therefore an altogether plastic or inchoate emotional nature to work
upon. He can only modify it, eradicating any twists or warps which exist in it,
and strengthening what is beautiful. What has to be given to the child — or
usually, as a matter of fact, reawakened in him — is a deep capacity for
feeling, with, at the same time, a serenity while he feels, .
This can largely be achieved by working with the child's physical body;
Herein lies the value of gymnastics, especially all gymnastics, which have in
them some sense of rhythm. Wherever a rhythm can be developed in physical
action, as in the dance or in eurhythmies, there is a clear emotional reaction
and the child's invisible emotional body is steadied and gains a sense of law
and order; and this reacts on the mental nature so as to attune it to the
thought of law. This effect is specially heightened where the rhythmic
movements are performed by many children in common; it is as if while they all
work together they become
units of an invisible rhythmic movement, which imposes upon them a great
law of beauty and order in action.
The sense of law and beauty is also greatly developed by training the
child in poetry and music; this training does not mean that the child must be
made to write poetry or to compose music — unless indeed he has a special
aptitude for either within him — but that he shall be given both music and
poetry as his
emotional food. Every child from earliest years should know some poetry
and some music suited to his capacity; but we must take the greatest care that
the word-phrases or musical phrases are really suitable. For just as physical
dirt may infect the sensitive body of the child, so too can the emotional land
mental natures be infected by harmful poetry and crude music. Nursery
rhymes, with their usual jumble of thoughts and images which have little
relation to life, are in this respect distinctly harmful; perhaps presently our
poets will give us great poems for little children to take the place of the
nursery rhymes
which are taught them now.
If we could, in our modern civilisation, abolish the ugly noises of the
streets, and the ugly pictures on hoardings, as well as the
use of phrases in language distorted from their true meaning, we should
not need to complain of unruly children; unruliness is a malady of the
emotional nature, but the germs of it are not so much in the children as in the
outer world which surrounds them in our modern civilizations.
The mental nature of the child has to be trained by making it strictly
true to fact; and this is exceedingly difficult in these days, because so many
of the words we use do not signify what they are meant to signify. Words having
definite, accepted meanings are often used for purposes of exaggeration or as
slang, and these things confuse the sensitive mental nature of the child.
Therefore the greatest care has to be taken that children only hear
words which are true, that is, words which have some clear and precise relation
to the thing signified. The mental nature of the child is extremely active and
difficult to hold along definite lines; therefore clear descriptions of things
must be given to him and also expected from him. This mental accuracy in his
education will enable his dormant mentality to express itself more fully
as the years pass; accuracy of thought and description is necessary for the
highest of reasons, which is to bring down to the child's brain his
consciousness as a soul who has already thought accurately about such
experiences as have been his in
his past lives.
Needless to say the child's mind has to be trained by stories. The mind
is one of the finest architectural implements that we have; the mind's nature
is to build. We must, therefore, give it suitable material at the varying
stages of its growth, and in early years show the mind what makes for beauty in
building.
Here comes in the use of fairy stories, and especially of myths; myths
have in them an intrinsic beauty of structure, and the child's mind is trained
to high imaginative faculty by teaching him the great romances of the visible
and invisible worlds.
A necessary element in education is to give the child, even in his
earliest years, some definite synthesis upon which to found his imagination;
and for this religion is fundamentally necessary. A religion need not mean
definite dogmas of a theological kind; what the child needs to start with is some
great universal thought embodying in it a universal feeling.
Every religion has many such suitable thoughts, even for a child's mind,
and it is perfectly possible to surround children with a beautiful religious
atmosphere. Each child should be taught morning and evening to recollect
himself as a soul by some simple prayer of dedication ; one such, greatly in
use among the children of Theosophists, is this simple prayer of the
"Golden Chain " :
I am a link in the Golden Chain of Love that stretches around the world,
and must keep my link bright and strong.
So I will try to be kind and gentle to every living thing I meet,
and to protect and help all who are weaker than myself.
And I will try to think pure and beautiful thoughts, to speak pure and
beautiful words, and to do pure and beautiful actions.
May every link in the Golden Chain become bright and strong.
In this beautiful prayer the child's imagination can easily grasp its
symbolism, while the prayer has within it the great thought of a larger unit of
life than the child himself. A work yet waiting to be done for education is to
write textbooks and story-books for children which present to them the
universal life of humanity, while fascinating their imagination at the same
time; we could make of children great philosophers, if only we realised that
philosophy is not a matter of definite systems or schools, but of
thoughts and feelings and aims which the best of humanity have all in common.
One further important element in the child's education should be the
teaching given to him through tending plants and animals; these lower orders of
creation should be near the child's life constantly, so that he may remember
himself as one linked in a great chain of life, and realise that his nobility
grows as he
serves not only those above him but also those below. And apart from
this, each flower or tree or animal radiates its own influence, and we can
utilise these invisible aids to hasten the child's growth in thought and
feeling.
When the time comes for a boy or girl to go to College, we may take for
granted that the vehicles — physical, astral and mental — have been disciplined
to some extent and are fairly under control. Therefore now begins a period when
the soul
can definitely impress on the brain his inner attitude to life, in order
to train his vehicles for the work in life which he plans to do. Unfortunately,
in present-day Universities, the training given is deficient, because the
teaching is so exceedingly academical and has little relation to the practical
problems of life as seen by the soul. The most useful part in many ways, of
University life is not the instruction received from the professors, but that
received from the students, in games and in social intercourse. The
usual result of College education as it exists now is very well described in
these lines :
A young Apollo, golden-haired,
Stands dreaming on the verge of
strife,
Magnificently unprepared
For the long littleness of life.
When Theosophical ideas prevail in Universities, it will be recognised
that the teaching given must definitely aim at making clear to the student his
own problems as a soul. He has come to life to do a work, and the preliminary
years of child and youth have been spent in building his vehicle; now he is
free to
survey his past and look into the future, in order to make clear to
himself what he is and what is his work. The help to be given to him is by
presenting such aspects of culture as awaken within him his ancient synthesis.
All through his education in Kindergarten and School this has been one
of its aims; but while the synthesis there was mainly felt emotionally, during
College it should be recognised intellectually.
The synthesis is to be brought before him by arranging the experiences
of the geniuses of the past and of the
present in such a manner that their general impression is to strengthen in him
his innate enthusiasm for his own special work as a soul. If any man or woman
finishes College without having found within himself or herself a deep
enthusiasm for a work, the University has failed in its aim so far as he or she
is concerned. It is the function of a University to show us what are the
objects worth pursuing in life, not, as now, merely to equip us for a
profession.
This was indeed the aim of University life in
life is, that in the University the professors themselves are confused
as to the great problems of existence, and hence their enthusiasms run
primarily on intellectual and academic lines. It is well known that
A true University should so train a man that through all his work in
life, after he leaves the University, there shines a serene radiance as of an
immortal doing a work in time; and this is the real basis of any culture worth
the name. It has been said that the function of a University is to turn out
gentlemen and
scholars; the work of the University, from the Theosophical standpoint,
should be to make of men immortals and servers. It is in the University that
the highest ideals of life should be reflected with beauty and serenity; and
the greatest ideal of life to be taught to men in such a place in modern days
should
be the joy of fellowship in working together with all men and nations in
one definite work for the welfare of humanity. Of the many perfections which a
University can give to a man or woman, that which is most needed today is to
make him or her a Knight of Service, just as of old with King Arthur's band,
one
of that
Goodliest fellowship of famous
knights
Whereof this world holds record.
Those of us who have gained what modern Universities have to give, know
how much we owe to them; but we cannot help confessing that while they equipped
us in some fashion mentally, they did not equip us to understand the problem of
life which confronted us when we left College. We have had to unlearn, slowly
and painfully, many of the lessons of the past, and learn many strange and
difficult lessons of whose existence our professors told us nothing. If all
this could be radically changed, and the University be made definitely a place
where to us, as souls, our soul's work is pointed out, and also how, as we do
that work, there is all round us the background of Eternity, what could not
University life be as an essential part in the life of every man and woman !
As things are now, many a man and woman who has had no College education
is a nobler Soul and a greater Server than those who have had their years in a
University. All this will surely change when the fundamental principles of Theosophy permeate education, and our
professors profess above all things the great truths which reveal to men their
Divine nature, and how that nature is developed through human service.
CHAPTER IV
THEOSOPHY IN BUSINESS
THERE is an idea largely prevalent in the world among religious people
that business activities are incompatible with a truly religious life. This has
been due to the peculiar conception of life which certain exponents of religion
have given to their followers. We know how today people think of "
religious " interest and " secular " interests, and there is a
tacit recognition that they
must be opposed, or, if not actually in opposition, at least mutually
exclusive.
This conception arises from an exaggeration in religions of the thought
of the Transcendence of God; the Creator, having once created His world, is
thought of as living in some sphere removed in space from that world, and as
merely supervising it.
In this religious conception, man, as the creature of God, has only the
duty of pleasing his Maker so as to make secure his own salvation. I well
remember a sermon which I heard once in a Christian Church on the duty of man
to God; this duty was described as composed of the three virtues of humility,
gratitude and obedience. The preacher insisted upon the subservience of the
soul of man to God as a pre-requisite to a religious life.
It was evident that according to him the ordinary activities of life in
the home, in business, and in amusements, counted for very little with God, and
that man was judged according to certain theological virtues which he had or
had not acquired. This extreme Christian conception of the old problems of
man's
everyday life is very vividly summed up, in the verse of a hymn which
was sung by the congregation on this particular day of the sermon; the verse is
this :
I am going home in the good old
way,
I have served the world with its
worthless pay,
For its hopes are vain and its
gains are loss,
And I glory now in the
blood-stained Cross.
Here we have very clearly the thought that the multifarious activities
of the world have no special use in the spiritual growth of man, and that what
we gain of capacity and growth outside the strictly religious sphere is but
"worthless pay". Wherever in a religion we have the idea of
renunciation and asceticism,
there usually develops this idea of the uselessness of life in the
world.
The natural consequence of the division of life into secular and
religious is the creation of two moralities which have often little relation to
each other; the religious man will consider that it is perfectly legitimate to
be selfish, savage and unspiritual in his business dealings with a fellow man,
whom he will try to love as a "neighbour” in his religious relation
towards him; a deeply religious man, both tender-hearted and kind in one part
of his nature, yet will possess another part of savagery and resentment, and
will see no reason why this latter phase of himself should be modified at the
cost of business gain. A fraudulent but pious milkman, who will water his milk
on weekdays with perfect nonchalance, will do it on Sunday too, with his pious
Sunday face, and then go to church and revel in his religion !
Now Theosophy abolishes these two moralities in the world of business,
by showing that the business world is as much a part of God's world as temples
and churches. It is One Life which is manifesting through all the activities of
men, and all the activities which have been developed in civilisation are
necessary in the Divine Plan.
God's plan for the salvation of humanity works not only through
individual men, but also through men as groups. Men's natures must be grown
emotionally, mentally and spiritually, and one cause of this growth is their
collective activity in various organisations. In the collective life of humanity,
various types of divine agents are required to carry out His purpose; the ruler
and the lawgiver, the fighter, the teacher, the priest, the healer, the artist,
are all required to play their roles as actors in the Divine Drama of life; but
not less of a divine actor is the business man.
Now the man to whom business is one of his principal obligations comes
as a soul into life with as much a spiritual purpose as the man who is the
priest; that purpose is to equip himself as a soul for activities everywhere
and in all time.
He does not come to gain wealth or ease, but capacity; his Soul is put
into a business life, rather than into one of religion or art, because he can
learn such soul qualities as he next requires for his growth more swiftly in
the business world than any other sphere. The sterling virtues which are
learned in business are fundamentally spiritual; no man can be a successful
business man unless he is one-pointed unless he is quick to respond to
opportunities, unless he grows in imagination. These are not "
secular" virtues because they are developed in what we hold to be secular
activities; they are capacities which are built into the life of the soul.
Certainly we find that a large number of business men, highly endowed
with these qualities, are selfish, cruel and hard,
but this does not mean that the virtues are useless, because the
possessors of them lack other virtues. When we remember that a man lives many
lives, and that once he acquires a capacity he never loses it, we shall then
understand how, after a business man has developed these virtues in one life
(even though it has meant the development at the same time of selfishness), in
a future life, when his vision is cleared and he begins to be altruistic, he
will still have this marked ability when he turns to his work in altruism.
In the evolution of humanity, the faculties of all men, good and bad,
are used; "blindly the wicked work the righteous will of heaven". The
world's lands are, habitable today only because a few pioneers originally went
out into the deserts and forests and made them habitable; they may have gone
out purely for selfish
purposes, but nevertheless they were used as the agents of a Divine
Plan. Men may go out as pioneers into new lands to gain wealth for themselves;
but we know that such a life requires heroism, sacrifice, doggedness, strength,
and these virtues become permanent acquisitions of the soul. In the same way,
today, in the "trust magnates" and "beef barons" of
The practical message of Theosophy
to the business man is that he should identify himself with the higher
possibilities and motives in business, and not with the lower. What the former
are, we can see if we look at the various stages of development in business
capacity which men show. In the earliest stage of
commercial life, we have mere greed, and the man is all the time
thinking of his private interests and gloating over them as his particular
possessions. In the second stage, the element of greed is mastered by the
mental element of business routine, and the individual becomes practically the
slave of business, busying himself continually with all kinds of activities in
business, not always because of the profits involved, but largely because these
activities give him the sense of vitality and reality.
In the third stage of growth, the business man is conscious of himself
as the great master of capacity, and is far more conscious of this power as he
exercises it than of the gain it brings; he is often most unselfish about
individuals and most ascetic in his private life, though of course he will
manifest the acme of selfishness in his utter one-pointedness in the exercise
of this power. But then will inevitably come the last stage, when, in the
exercise of his master-capacity, he sees what are the honourable lines of activity
for him as a guardian of divine energies.
The Theosophical business man should always aim at idealism in his
profession; and this is quite compatible, even today, in spite of all the
obstacles in his way. The first characteristic of this idealism should be the
holding of a high conception of his business as a noble contribution to human
welfare, and with
this a keen desire to bring it to a high state of perfection. He will,
therefore, be thoroughly efficient not only in his own line, but he will
try to join with others in associations, so as to uphold the ideal. Much has
yet to be done in bringing business men together into organizations, not merely
for private interests, as in Trusts, but to discuss the fundamentally efficient
principles involved in business. Into the hands of business men the Divine Plan
entrusts the development of one aspect of the world's work, and it is
their duty to see that their work is done with as little waste of time and
energy as possible.
Something has been done so far in standardising tools and machinery;
much more needs to be done along this line, so that there may be throughout the
world facilities for the mutual development of inventions and processes. It is
from the business men of the world today
that we expect the practical carrying out of the great ideals of
Internationalism; while religious teachers
may expound Universal Brotherhood, the practical foundations for it must
be laid by the business men of the world.
The Theosophical business man must always remember that the world's
development is part of a great Plan, and "big men" in all departments
of life are employed to carry out the Divine work. For instance, just now there
are great changes taking place in the business world in bringing about great
combinations; we know how ruthless such Trusts are and how they push to the
wall the small merchant.
Yet we see at the same time the slow transformation of material
development from the work of a few for their own gain to the work of a great
national department for the welfare of all. It is because of the plans of
business development laid down by such combinations that one day, where
spirituality and not greed controls such Trusts, we shall be able utterly to
abolish poverty. Every invention that has made life easier for men is a
realization of the thought of God, and an inventor is not less a God's priest
than is a priest of religion.
All men are channels of one great Divine Force, and as it runs through
them they retain it for themselves, some more and some less; and most do not
understand the duty they have of transmuting that Force into the least little
activity of life. If the business man were to recognize this principle, he
would
then realize how much of a builder he is in the divine edifice of human life.
Did not Christ say : "I must be about my Father's business ? "
The great Father lives mysteriously in our world — as ruler and lawgiver,
healer and priest; but He lives, too, strange as it may seen, as the
"business man". This is the high aspect of business which Theosophy shows, and the man or woman,
whose Dharma or Duty is business, can bring a high spirituality to all work in
shop and in office, in factory and in counting-house, doing all as a part of
“my Father's business ",
CHAPTER V
THEOSOPHY IN SCIENCE
THEOSOPHY stands foremost
among the religious philosophies of the world today in the wholehearted
acceptance of the facts of modern science. More than this, Theosophy so
continually appeals to observation and reason that an inquirer into Theosophy,
who has had any preliminary scientific training, finds himself thoroughly at
home in the Theosophical method. This is not necessarily because the
conclusions of science and Theosophy are the same, but because both are the
result of a certain method of inquiry. We owe the modern scientific method
largely to the work of Francis Bacon; it was he who laid such emphasis on the
need of careful obervation, of methodical grouping of facts, and of rising from
particular ideas about them to general concepts of natural law.
This method of induction has enabled the modern scientist to discover
great fundamental natural laws, and the practical application of the
discoveries of science has been to revolutionise civilization.
The facts which have so far been considered by the modern scientist tell
us of a vast mechanical process in Nature, and, within her an inexplicable
tendency to transformation which is called Evolution; and this tendency, ever
at work, brings into being the myriads of forms in the mineral, vegetable and
animal
kingdoms. The facts observed show us a great ladder of life, which
stretches without a break from the speck of dust to the greatest human genius.
Of course it is recognized that this process, which has created the
human intelligence, must not be judged in its sole relation to man, for man is
only one species out of myriads. Now, if we consider what science says about
man, then, so far as the generally accepted facts of modern science tell us,
man, as
an individual of his type, is merely a material form and the forces
playing through that form. When that material form disintegrates, nothing
remains of him except what slight change he has caused, in the trend of the
evolutionary process, by any attempts he may have made to modify his
environment away from savagery and towards civilization.
Theosophy has no doubts to cast upon scientific facts, nor as to their
complete authority to solve the problems of life. There are, however, certain
weaknesses inherent in modern science which make the present scientific
conclusions only of partial value.The first of these is the over-hasty
generalization which characterises the inductive method in practice;
theoretically, the conclusions drawn from a group of facts should be recognized
as warranted only so long as no contradictory facts present themselves; in practice,
however, the tendency is for the scientist, when his hypothesis seems to
explain his facts, to take for granted that there are not other facts which
might question his deductions.
There is hence an authoritative conclusion in scientific theories which
is really unscientific. A striking instance of his weakness in scientific
method is illustrated by the geological theories as to the age of the world,
which was stated conclusively not so many decades ago to be only a few hundred
thousand years. But one sole fact, in itself of no greater consequence in
evolution than any other fact, the nature of Radium, has largely modified all
these geological theories; and scientists now feel warranted in assuming that
the earth's age should be counted by millions of years instead of by hundreds
of thousands.
A second example is the way that theories of heredity were accepted for
decades as absolutely conclusive, in the light of the assumption that acquired
characteristics were transmitted; this assumption was accepted as a truth
mainly because the facts so far gathered did not contradict such a hypothesis.
But a few facts discovered in the crossing of peas, considered sotrivial as not
to deserve notice for several years, have imposed on the old theories an
entirely new adjustment to facts, and
A second weakness in science is due more to the individual scientist and
less to the method, and this is exemplified in the general tendency, still
shown by scientists, to ignore those facts which tend to prove a psychic or
spiritual nature in man. Scientists, owing to an unscientific bias, have
erected barriers
to truth in this matter as cramping to human progress as any that
theologies have ever made. Even today, the small band of scientists who have
scientifically examined such facts about man's spiritual nature as are within
the range of modern science, meet with an unscientific hostility when they
announce the
results of their investigations, largely because those results condemn
the dogmatism of past scientific conclusion.
A third and a more fundamental weakness of science, so far as practical
life is concerned, is that science cannot give, by her very nature, a real
philosophy of life. Every day that passes adds to the old stock of facts, and
so many specialised branches of science now appear, that today we cannot
"see the wood for the trees". There are so many facts being
discovered, that every scientific "law" must be held merely
tentatively, if we are to be strictly scientific; one new fact — as Radium —
may mean a profound modification of the "law". Science can
legitimately only describe a process, and not a direction; not having all the
facts, she cannot scientifically presume any kind of a resultant diagonal.
Science can, therefore, never give a philosophy, but she can give the
indispensable facts for one.
Theosophy, dealing as it does continually with the facts of the
Universe, is but a continuation of science; the difference, however, is that
Theosophy has a larger group of facts to go upon, and also shows in what way an
individual can discover for himself that final diagonal of life which is the
true philosophy of conduct. The facts of Theosophy have been gathered in
precisely the same way as the geologist or physicist gathers his facts, that is,
by a carefully trained faculty of observation, leading to induction and
deduction, and tested repeatedly by every new fact.
In Theosophy there is the tradition of an Ancient Wisdom, carefully
built up by this method by mighty scientific
Intelligences, who are called the Masters of the Wisdom; it is their
scientific knowledge which is stated in modern Theosophy.
The principal point in which this ancient science differs from the
modern is in the conclusion, in the light of facts discovered by the ancient
scientists, that the evolutionary process consists in a dual development of
life and of form. Every object consists of the form it appears to be, and a
life which holds the matter in that form, but is capable of independent
existence at the dissolution of the form. This life may seem scarcely to have
the characteristics of life, as in a piece of mineral, or it may show the first
germs of what we call life, as in the fungus. Just as science shows a
magnificent ladder of the evolution of form, so Theosophy shows a similar
ladder of the evolution of life and consciousness, from that of the atom to
that of the Creator of the Universe. The Masters of the Wisdom have also
brought within the range of scientific observation the invisible worlds, upon
the fringes of which some modern scientists are now beginning to come in some
of their experiments.
Moreover Theosophy can give that which modern science cannot give
legitimately, and that is a proof of the final consummation of evolution, which
isthe transformation of the human individual consciousness, by a process of
rebirth and growth, into a consciousness showing the attributes of Divinity.
The
immortality of the soul and its steady growth into greater life need not
always be mere speculations, because Theosophy points out how an individual can
know these things for himself.
The method of discovery of these "final causes" follows
logically from the highest ideals of modern science, which inculcate a pure,
impersonal observation and thinking. Theosophy carries this high scientific
thought concerning nature into a vaster realm, presenting to the intelligence
the greater ranges of facts
of the invisible worlds. The high training of the imagination which
Theosophy gives, guided as it is by a perfect altruism, evokes then within the
individual's consciousness a new faculty greater than mind, and this new
faculty can know the final causes. When the perfect scientist, or the true
Theosophist,
has " cast out the self" in his observation of life, his mind
develops a luminous quality which makes it the mirror which reflects a greater
faculty than the mind itself. This new faculty, which is nearest described,
though only partly, by the word Intuition, is acquired by no external means,
but is born
within a man's own inner nature; it gives him then the sole criterion of
Truth, for beyond any doubt of the most criticalmind, he is able to know Truth
at first hand for himself. In thus continuing the scientific training of the
mind till the mind itself is transcended, Theosophy fills up the inevitable
gaps in the scientific method, since it gives that final criterion directly to
each individual, for the lack of which science is unable to give a valid
philosophy of life and conduct.
The great value of science in human evolution is due not only to the
practical changes that the discovery of natural law effects in civilization,
but also to the spiritual training that each individual gains by being taught
to be scientific in his observation of the world around him. There is no one
who can do without the scientific method, till at least he gains sufficient
serenity and
purity of mind to discover the higher process of intuition within him;
the more are the facts of nature, to be observed by him impersonally and
purely, which are brought into the consciousness of man, the more is he helped
to realize the
higher nature within him. This is why the scientific method is a
necessary part of the highest human training and of spiritual growth.
Theosophy applied to science means that scientific facts are considered
not mainly for their utilitarian value to add to man's comforts, but primarily
because their understanding shows man the true harmony of the larger whole of
which he is but a part.
There is no greater strength or dignity possible to man than from his
realization of a Divine Mind at work in all the manifestations of nature; for
when that Divine Mind is seen, then it is seen as
the Good, the True and the Beautiful; and when that Divine Mind is
reverenced, then man himself grows in wisdom, strength and beauty. Only slight
changes are needed, in the present groupings of scientific facts, to show to
man's intelligence the wonderful design that is woven in nature to make a
perfection
and harmony cognisable alike by the eye and the brain. The study of
nature's forms, under the guidance of Theosophical scientists, can be worked
out, even for little children, so as to train the mind to reverence all
manifestations of life, whether in stone or plant or animal. Specially would
emphasis be laid on
the geometry of nature, according to which electrons are built into
atoms, and atoms into elements, and elements into the forms of the mineral,
vegetable and animal kingdoms; not chemical forces alone would be studied, but
chemical shapes too.
The Platonic solids, with their development from the tetrahedron into
the icosahedron, would be studied as the " axes of growth " of all
forms. Science would then give the alphabet of rhythm and beauty, learning
which, men would know how to find beauty everywhere in every object of all the
worlds, visible and invisible. A pure intellect is the glory of science, and
the pure
in mind take conscious delight in the Good, the True and the Beautiful,
which mirrors itself in their minds.
Every child should be taught to observe the life of nature around him;
he should be guided to take a keen interest in such facts of nature as are
within the range of his experiences, and his elders should carefully lead him
on stage by stage in his discoveries and in his thinking till, even with his
child's limitations, he develops something of the faculty of impersonal
observation. He
will then develop, if not a keen interest in nature, at least a deep
respect for her ways. This faculty, which he develops through a scientific
training, will affect his whole mentality, enabling him to come more quickly
than without such training to truth in all the departments of life in which he
will engage.
His moral nature will manifest greater justice because he will be less
passionate in his judgment; he will be less affected by hearsay and opinion and
popular prejudice because of the growing instinct in him to be on guard against
the mere
presentations of facts, when such presentations are not real but
illusory. There would be less of malice and hatred, gossip and prejudice in the
world, if men in their childhood were to be trained in the rudiments of
scientific thinking; these moral failings become impossible when the cause of
them, which
is false thought, is removed.
The message of Theosophy to science is to bring out her real strength as
an aid to the discovery of truth. For that which science deals with, the facts
of nature, are expressions of a great Divine Life; and he who can come in the
true scientific spirit before a fact comes indeed before God Himself. For a
fact,
when clearly conceived, is a fragment of the great Reality in which is
all that men need for their growth and happiness. The truer the Theosophist,
the more scientific he is, just as the truer the scientist is to his ideal
method, the more of a Theosophist he is, in fact though not in name.
CHAPTER VI
THEOSOPHY IN ART
THE place of Art in life grows in significance each day as men develop
greater faculties of thought and feeling. The higher the civilisation the more
powerful is the influence of art in it; and the capacity for artistic
conception and expression in a man becomes in many ways the standard of his
evolutionary
achievement. Why this is so we shall see, when we examine what art is
from the standpoint of Theosophy.
Now all our living leads to action; even in deep meditation a man is
acting, and acting in reality far more vigorously than when he disturbs merely
the equilibrium of physical nature. Each action is the final issue of a series
of forces either mental or emotional.
When an action originates in thought, that action is wise and just where
thought has dealt with realities and not falsities; where the thought has been
grounded in truth, and is four-square to
the facts of nature, the action is right and productive of good to the
individual and to the whole. It is the function of science to produce right
action by purifying the mind and by training it to be true to reality.
The function of art, on the other hand, is to induce right action
through right feeling; and since art has shown itself to be in many ways a
synthesis of man's highest self-expression, it is obvious that in our human
feelings there are ranges of emotion by means of which we can come to truth
swifter than by any
exercise of even the most discriminating mind. Man in his emotional
nature is near to the brute in some of his desires; yet there are within him
certain emotions which unbar hidden reservoirs of power which makes him
absolute master of circumstance. It is with these finer emotions that art is
concerned.
The keen sensibility to the beauty of a sunset synthesises in a moment
our past experiences of life and states them to our emotions in vast, sweeping
generalisations; a phrase of music in a particular mood may give us the glimpse
of a heaven hoped for or lost; the beauty of a human face may lead us whither
all the philosophies lead as they seek eternal verities. And these
finalities, which are stated to us by the highest developments of the
intellect, are given to us equally, and sometimes more profoundly and more
truly, by our feelings.
An understanding of Theosophy explains the process of that right feeling
which is necessary for art. Feeling, looked at from within the man, is a mood;
but looked at from without, is the setting in movement of a finer vehicle,
called the astral body. Upon the purity of material, delicacy of structure, and
pliability of the astral body, depend the nature of a man's feelings,
and therefore his capacity for art. Theosophy applied to art deals primarily
with the purification and the training of the feelings.
Since the astral body is dependent for its sensations so largely upon
impacts which reach it through the physical body, the purification of the
physical body becomes the first essential. According to the kind of food eaten
is the kind of body; if the diet contains flesh of any animal, the body
acquires a gross
texture which reacts on the texture of the astral body, the vehicle of
feeling; when the food is pure and refined, the finer texture of the physical
body induces purity and delicacy in the astral. It is true that hitherto some
of the greatest artists have had, from the Theosophical standpoint, gross
bodies, and yet they have been creators of art; but this only means that they
would have
achieved still more, had not something of their creative force been lost
in its transmission through a coarsened physical vehicle. In spite of the
over-riding by will of nature's laws, the general law remains that the purer is
the physical body the greater is the sensibility to feeling, and hence the
greater the capacity for art.
Next, the feelings must be trained to be pure, that is, they must be
irresponsive to what conduces to impurity and keenly sensitive to what
harbours, purity. Here at once the question arises : What is, purity ? Leaving
aside the question of what purity is as a moral virtue, purity in the domain of
art means a correct appreciation of Beauty. What the Ideal Beauty is, which is
the unchanging standard, we need not for the moment consider; for there is
already in the world some knowledge of that Ideal Beauty, and for the practical
purposes of life there is no difficulty in distinguishing the beautiful front
the
commonplace or the ugly. What is important to realise is that, for
artistic development, there must be a continuous communion with Beauty and a
definite avoidance of what is the not-beautiful.. We little realise how the
lines in the objects that surround us in the home and in the streets affect our
astral bodies and so our emotional nature; discords of colour and sound,
impurities of line and form: give a warp to our natures which adds to our moral
weaknesses and debilitates our mental strength.
Men find it difficult to be virtuous largely because so much ugliness
surrounds them; just as bacteria in the dust and the air, and parasites of
various kinds, induce many a disease and diminish the physical vitality of men,
so invisibly, but not the less harmfully, hosts of emotional bacteria, the ugly
lines and forms and colours and sounds, infect our feelings and induce in them
a chronic moral ill-health which saps the vitality of the soul.
Civilisation has not yet awakened to the gravity of this hidden
contagion; it is taking place all the time, though we are little; aware of it
because we are "used" to it. But it is never the soul's nature to be
" used " to ugliness and evil; the inner constraint shows itself in
outer fractiousness; and, just as a baby's peevishness is to be traced to some
hurt produced in his little body by improper feeding or by some annoyance like
a pin sticking into him, so it is with men's tendencies to evil; the visible
and invisible uglinesses in life are responsible for the crimes of men
sometimes far more than their own criminal propensities.
Since every object around us affects invisibly our capacity for feeling,
either by hardening and coarsening or by making it more sensitive and profound,
a practical understanding of the place of art in life means a thorough
reconstruction of the environment of each man. Specially is that reconstruction
necessary in the case of children, whose astral bodies during their childhood
and youth are sensitive to outer influences far more than are the astral
bodies of grown-up people. Every object that surrounds children from the moment
of birth should have some touch of beauty; the lines and curves and colours of
walls and ceilings and furniture should definitely be aimed to influence the
child's feelings; ungainly street hoardings and palings, ugly plots of ground
and discordant sounds should all be banished from our towns for the sake of the
children, if not for our own sakes. We insist on sanitation to preserve the
health of the physical body; why should we not equally insist on a moral
sanitation to safeguard the health and sensitiveness of our finer vehicles ?
Purity of feeling is thus one element of right feeling; a second element
is sympathy. No feeling is right feeling unless in it there is reflected the
larger world of men's griefs and joys; each feeling, if it is to develop the
higher sensitiveness which produces art, must enshrine in ,it in miniature the
similar feelings of all humanity. There is no such thing as "art for art's
sake", if by
that phrase is meant that there exists a world of art and beauty
irrespective of its relation to the world of men. The highest art, consciously
or unconsciously, had its roots in men's hearts, though its boughs may lift up
their flowers to heaven; the most abstractly musical phrase of a symphony of
Beethoven has yet
its reflex in our human feelings. The more the artist's feelings widen
out in their sympathy withmen's sufferings and hopes and dreams, the vaster is
his art horizon, and the more universally understood his artistic creation.
Hence it follows that the artist must train his sympathies by
observation, by meditation, by travel, by practical service; while he purposely
uses his purified feelings as the tools of his art, yet must those feelings be
supported by a broad and purified intellect. There could be no greater boon to
an artist than Theosophy, which teaches him what are the universal feelings of
men, and what is that "God's Plan for men", the contemplation of
which is a perennial source of wisdom and purification.
While the purely artistic development is possible by temperament to only
a few, there is no man or woman or child born who has not some distinct
capacity for artistic feeling and expression. Every effort should be made to
rouse in the
child the dormant tendency to appreciate beauty; not only should he be
surrounded by beautiful objects, he should also be taught how to produce
beautiful things. The energies of his physical body should be taught the
meaning of rhythm through the dance; his eye and brain should be trained by
drawing.
He should be taught what are pure tones of sound in speech and in
singing, and his imagination should be trained through poetry and through
abstract music. Just as it is the duty of parents to see that children have healthy bodies, not
less is it their duty to see that their children have refined tastes too. By
placing before the sensitive feelings and unspoiled natures of children none
but
what is in the best of taste, and only what is best artistically, an
immense impetus is given to the unfolding of the Divine Spirit in man. For art
is less a faculty of the soul than an element of its inmost structure. Just as,
in the evolutionary process, the senselessness of the stone gives way to the
sensitiveness of the plant, and the vague feeling of the plant gives way to the
surging passions of the animal, and the animal's inchoate thoughts give
way in the next grade to man's coherent thinking, so too man's power of
understanding through the mind is to be made subordinate to knowledge by the
Intuition.
In most men this intuition is dormant, or only dimly sensed; the next
stage in human evolution is to understand life in the full light of the
intuition. Therefore it is that artistic development becomes supremely
necessary for all men; it enables them to do their life's work by a swifter and
completer process - that of the intuition - than thought can provide them.
It is true that the loftiest thought, by its utter impersonality and
when suffused by a desire for service, touches the realm of the intuition; the
great philosophers especially reveal the same insight into life's problems
which the pure intuition reveals when reflected in art. But it is far easier to
make men pure and sympathetic in feeling than impersonal in thought; therefore,
while science and philosophy are essential for human culture, that culture is
more swiftly developed by appealing to the artistic instincts of men.
When, by surrounding men with beauty, and by training them to respond to
it, their intuitions are aroused, they discover a higher and a more lasting
truth than science can reveal to them. The great advantage of the vision of
truth by the intuition is that it is always synthetic; each truth of life
discovered by the intuition is linked to the totality of truth, and man can
proceed in his
further discoveries along a road that has no break nor divergence. The
drift of things is seen clearer, and from a more central point, by the
intuition than by the highest purely mental process.
There is scarce any such humanitarian influence in life as art, if its
inner force is understood and consciously used. Each feeling which art gives
rise to is like the segment of a circle of universal feeling in which the
feelings of all the rest of humanity too are like segments. Each artistic
creation — not the mere imaginative fancy or tour de force, but the real
creation which is as a
window into a Divine World of Ideas — links the creator to all men; it
at-ones him with humanity.
A soul capable during life of only one work of art, either in the
thought world or in the emotional realm, has yet linked all humanity with him
to that measure of the artistic capacity in him; while a great poet or painter
or sculptor or musician becomes like an eternal priest of humanity, linking man
ever to God.
This at-one-ing quality of art is a force which is as yet but dimly
understood by man; when civilisation everywhere is instinctively artistic, then
un-charitableness and enmity must utterly vanish, since to love art is to love
that Totality of which each of us is but an infinitesimal fraction.
Lastly, there is through artistic development a discovery that utterly
revolutionises the life of the discoverer. True art, as already explained, is
born where there is purity of feeling and sympathy; and when art becomes
creative there results a lofty impersonality. The result achieved of
"casting out the self" by scientific thought is also achieved by the
artist while he
creates; all great artists concur that at the supreme moments of
inspiration all thought and sense of their little selves are swept away. When
the little self of the artist is thus swept away, there steps into his life for
the moment a larger Self, an indescribable Personality. It is the discovery of
this Personality, who is master of his craft and infallible in his wisdom,
which is the great
event in the artist's life.
It is the artist's "salvation", that realisation of man's
eternal safety and of his imperishable nature which religions try to give
through ecstatic contemplation. Perhaps it is only at a few moments of his
creative life that the artist makes the great discovery; but each moment of
discovery is as a milestone in his unending artistic career, and to have even
for once known that Personality is thenceforth to see all life with
"larger, other eyes" than are possessed by men.
The artists who have this vision are "not of an age but for all
time," and an Ideal World hovers round them, shedding its many-hued gleams
on the drab events of this mortal world. That world is always around us, though
only the great artists can tell us what it is in its grandeur and totality. Yet
each man can
gain a glimpse of it, in so far as he trains his feelings to be pure and
radiating with understanding and sympathy. A child with his integrity of heart
and innocency of hands, may gain a glimpse of that world, becoming for the time
truly an artist; gleams of it are seen in the colour of the clouds, in the blue
of the sea and in the roar of the waves. The mountain ranges mirror it, and in
every lake and pool, and in the fields at eventide, and in forest, and
in thicket, that world looks into our hearts and minds. The face of friend and
beloved is a mirror of it; the harmonies of music tell us ofit with an almost
maddening insistence. The great Reality, in which our immortal natures are
rooted, is not far away, to be realised perhaps - who knows ? — only after
death; it is here, and now, the source of every solace as it is too the cause
of all pining and death. And Art has the key to open the door to it, to all who
seek that door.
CHAPTER VII
THEOSOPHY IN THE STATE
EVERY great body of ethical teaching has stood or fallen according to
its effect on men as they form organised states. Since a man is a unit of a
social organisation, the value which any ethical teaching may have for the
individual is inseparable from its application to the community of which he is
a part. Just as an understanding of certain simple truths of Theosophy modifies
a man's conception of himself, so too the conception of what constitutes the
true state, when viewed in the light of Theosophy, profoundly modifies a man's
attitude to his life among his fellow men.
For what is the modern state today ? In the main it is very little
different from the pack which we find among the higher vertebrates, like
jackals and wolves. As the aim of the pack is to protect itself against a
common enemy, and to get more easily food for itself, so the chief aim of the
modern state is to protect itself against aggression and to increase its means
of
sustenance.
The morality of the pack rules the state today; any individual who
diminishes the power of the state's resistance or of its aggression, or who
lessens the quantity of food, is regarded as the enemy of the state. Hence our
attitude to the law-breaker and to the poor; the criminal is looked upon as one
who has lost his right of citizenship, and he is punished more to deter others
from crime than with the intention of redeeming him; we do not inquire into
what made him commit the crime and who is responsible for the environment which
made his criminality possible.
The poor man is considered a failure in life, a part of the refuse of
civilisation, and we do not inquire how far the state itself is responsible for
the causes of his poverty. Armies and navies are part and parcel of modern
civilisation, and woe indeed to that state which should refuse to imitate all
the other states and not equip itself to be efficient in destruction. In our
ordinary conceptions of the state, in most peoples minds, the individual is
largely regarded as an animal to be curbed for the good of the state, and the
neighbouring states are regarded as rivals against whose enmity the state must
ever be on the watch. How radically different is the Theosophist's conception
of the state will be seen when we apply Theosophical truths to the problems of
the state.
There are two fundamental facts about the true state, and they are:
first, that the State is a Brotherhood of Souls, and secondly that the State is
an expression of the Divine Life of God. Let us see how the state appears in
the light of these two truths.
The State is a Brotherhood of Souls. The individuals who compose the
state are Souls, immortal egos in earthly bodies; they are the members of the
state in order to evolve to an ideal of perfection. As souls, and as all
partaking of one Divine Nature, all within the state are brothers; whether rich
or poor, cultured
or ignorant, law-abiding or law-breaking, all are brothers, and nothing
one soul does can modify that fact of nature. The educated or the proud may
refuse to see an identity of nature with the ignorant and the lowly; the weak
and the criminally minded may show more the attributes of the brute than of the
God. Yet is there in high and low alike the one nature of the Divine Life, and
nothing a man does can weaken the bond of brotherhood between him and all the
others.
But this Brotherhood of all souls is like the relation of brotherhood
within a family; brothers are not all of the same age, though they are of the
same parents. So too, among the souls who compose a state, there are elder
souls and younger souls; it is just this difference of spiritual age and
capacity which makes possible the functions of the real state. The age of the
soul is seen in the response to ideals of altruism and co-operation; he is the
elder soul who springs forward to help in the welfare of others, and
that soul is the younger who thinks of self-interest first and follows its
needs in preference to self-sacrifice on behalf of others.
The divisions which we now have in a state's life of rank and of wealth
are no true distinctions which divide the elder souls from the younger souls;
one man born into a high class or caste may yet be a very young soul, while
another whose birth is ignoble, according to the world's conventions, may be
far advanced as a soul.
There being in each state elder souls and younger souls, the Law of
Brotherhood requires that the elder shall be more self-sacrificing, on behalf
of the younger, than the younger should be towards the elder. Since life
through long ages has given more to the elder souls than to the younger, more
is required from the elder, both of self-sacrifice and of responsibility.
By the natural order of events, the direction of a state's affairs will
fall inevitably on the elder souls. It does not matter whether the power in a
state is administered by a monarchy, oligarchy or democracy, because when the
state begins to perform its true functions, the direction of its affairs is by
an aristocracy, by the best souls, that is, the elder and the more capable
souls. These best souls may call themselves democrats or republicans, and may
hold their power in trust from the masses, but the fact remains the same that
the guidance of the state is entrusted by the younger souls into the hands of
the elder souls. Till the day comes in the far-off future when each soul will
himself, as the Divine Lawgiver, be a law unto himself, the direction of the
state must come into the hands of a few, whom we call the rulers or
administrators.
The great principle to guide them in their administration is that in all
the state's affairs the principle of Brotherhood shall dominate in all things.
This will mean the clear recognition that any preventible suffering or
ignorance or backwardness of even one citizen is to the detriment of the
welfare of all the citizens; that since the destiny of each is inseparable from
the destiny of all, as rises one so rise all, and as falls one so fall all;
that there must be no shadow of exploitation of one man by another, of one
class or caste by another.
Since, too, all men are souls and, even the least developed, Gods in the
making, becomes the duty of the administrator in all laws and institutions
continually to appeal to the hidden Divinity in man. In existent states, the
attempt is first and foremost to curb the remnant of the brute in man, utterly
forgetting the power in him of co-operation on the side of good, if only the
God in him were to be appealed to.
When there comes in the state the recognition of this hidden God in a
man, a complete revolution will take place in our attitude to and in our
treatment of the criminal. First and foremost, whatever he does, he is our
brother. He is a younger brother truly to those of us who are the elders and
give implicit and
willing obedience to the laws of the state; but though he fall a
thousand times, he is our brother even after the thousandth time.
The problem of crime then turns first upon the understanding of the
causes which contribute to crime, and secondly of the means of the proper
building of the character of the law-breaker
which will make failure impossible again for him.
The contributory causes to crime are physical and mental. Of the
physical, want of health is the great cause; it may be due to malnutrition or
to bad housing conditions or to disease, but where an individual lacks health
of body, due to any one of these causes, part of the responsibility of the
crime rests upon the
state's administrators and upon all who have appointed them by their
suffrages.
The mental contributory causes are both of the individual and of the
community. The individual has in him a weakness of character brought from his
past lives, a weakness strengthened by an unfavourable environment, instead of,
as it should be, atrophied by a favourable one; to the strength of his own failing,
the individual is responsible for his crime. But the strength of his own
innate failing may not necessarily be the full strength evidenced in the crime;
sometimes much of the strength required for committing the crime was given to
the criminal by others.
Thus, for instance, when a weak-willed, undeveloped man in a fit of
drunkenness commits a murder, we should see, were we to analyse fully all the
hidden causes, that there was added to his fury and anger an additional power
of hatred from outside. Some outwardly law-abiding citizen may have willed with
hate to kill an opponent but have refrained, because of the consequences to him
of the crime; but though he refrained from the act, he did not refrain from the
powerful thought of murder. His thought, launched into the atmosphere, flies to
the weak-willed, drunken man, whose will alone would not be sufficient to impel
him to murder, and fastens upon him at the time of anger, and discharges its
full force through him, and so commits vicariously a murder through him. In
each criminal act of every criminal all of us have a share; it is the thoughts
of malice and hatred of the seemingly law-abiding citizens that as much
contribute to crime as the innate weakness of the criminals themselves. Crime
committed by a few is caused by all, and the final doer of the act is not alone
responsible for the act, but also each and every one who impelled him to that
act.
Next follows the consideration of the cure of the criminal. Since the
criminal is fundamentally diseased, and since all have contributed, some more
and some less, to his disease, the cure must not have the slightest thought of
punishment about it. On the contrary, it must be guided by the thought of
atonement. It was the state's function as guardian of every citizen to see that
in his environment everything which could foster the seed of evil in the
weak-willed man or woman had been removed; if he or she commits a crime, it is
a proof that the state had betrayed the trust imposed upon it by the Divine Law.
We, as citizens of the
state, must cure the disease of the law-breaker, not by our hatred, as
now when we imprison and punish him, but by our Brotherhood. We do not punish
the consumptive, but try to cure him with the best treatment we can give,
sparing him none of the state's resources to save his life. Similar must be our
attitude
to the law-breaker, who is our brother.
If only we could realise our Brotherhood with each citizen in the state,
we should discover dozens of new modes of curing crime. Already our growing
sense of humanity has discovered alternatives to banishment in goal in the
system of Probation adopted in many countries for first-offenders, and in the
Juvenile Courts and Junior Commonwealths and Reformatories which are
proving their efficiency in the case of juvenile offenders. We are beginning to
treat the criminal as if he were indeed still a man; only a little further
development
is needed on our part, and we shall know him as ever our brother. Then a
full tide of wisdom will be ours to solve many of the problems which baffle us
today as we try to improve the lives of our fellow men.
If all our laws could be so framed as to reveal that the sacrosanct
ideas of the state are not of rights to property but of preserving Brotherhood;
that men are not regarded as brutes, whose animality is taken for granted, but
rather as the sons of God, whose divine nature is continually expected to
reveal itself in
response to ideals of integrity and virtue and Brotherhood; that he who
refuses to co-operate with the state is not regarded by the state as less a
citizen and a brother but the more to be tended and cherished because of his
weakness; if this conception of the state could be taught to every child and
reverenced by
every man and woman; then indeed would crime diminish generation after
generation and the joys of co-operation replace the bitternesses of
competition, and for the first time would appear on earth a true state. Some
day there will be everywhere on earth these true states, for it is the Divine
Plan that men shall come to realise that a state is a Brotherhood of Souls.
The State is an expression of the Divine Life of God. Stage by stage in
an ascending ladder of life, the Nature of God as the Immanence reveals itself
in stone and plant, in invertebrate and vertebrate; each stage reveals more of
His life by greater complexity of the organism, bringing about on the side of
the
Form many units built up into a whole, and on the side of the Life, a
new expression of life higher than the separate lives of its component parts.
So too is there taking place with men, and through men, a fashioning of new
vehicles for the life of God. At one stage it is God the Man; at a later stage
it is God
the Family, and dimly we see in the family more of the possibilities of
life for each member of it, and by realising these possibilities we feel a new
call to sacrifice and idealism - for the Family. The man, as the unit of a
family, finds that his Divine Life is surrounded by a larger, more mystically
beautiful
radiance, which envelops him as the nutrient matter surrounds the
nucleus in the cell.
Then comes the later stage still, when another and a more glorious wave
of Divine Life descends on men, and out of families builds a State, fashioning
out of units a new and a larger whole. Thence appear new possibilities of life
for each within the state. A new sphere of Divine Life surrounds the souls
who make the state, feeding them with new hopes and dreams with which to
live, even as the mother nourishes within her womb the child and feeds its
young life with her own blood.
Could but citizens know of this brooding Life which is the essence of
the state, then would they joyfully build for it the perfect vehicle out of
themselves and their homes and their cities. Ugliness would vanish, to be
replaced by beautiful dwellings and stately cities; disease and misery would be
as an evil dream, and
poverty and bitterness and strife could nevermore mar the serene and
joyous life of the state. In each citizen's face would then be seen something
of the glory of the state; the artisan who toils as for the state would have a
beauty of bearing all his own; the artist and dreamer would reveal a beauty all
his own,
other than the beauty he discovers and proclaims. For, as man seeks God,
so God seeks man; as man through slow passage of time rises from the savage to
be the civilised man, from the solitary, self-seeking man to be the unit of a
family, and then of a state, so God descends to man first as the man's conscience
and his hopes and dreams of immortality, then as the family, and then as the
state.
For the true state is a revelation of God, and it is because that
revelation is yet to come that man strives to change his environment from good
to better, from better to best. Through barbarities and savageries, through
selfish greeds, through fratricidal wars, the world's states are changing age
by age, and men rise from the brute to the God; they change because God the
State calls for His habitation. It is this knowledge of God the State which
Theosophy reveals to all who desire to understand, what is the future that
awaits men.
When men understand what makes the true state, then will come a fuller
revelation still of God as the World State. Through all the states in the world
then will manifest a larger purpose than men have ever dreamed of before; each
state will grow into new, beauteous achievements because over all the states
broods the mighty power of God's Plan fulfilled at last. None will ask which is
the better state, for where God's hands have touched, there is perfection.
Shall a man, seeing that miracle of God, a sunset, ask whether the rose is
lovelier than the blue or the gold, or ask that the sunset be of one colour
alone ? So shall the world be some day, when the Wisdom of God "mightily
and sweetly ordereth all things". To this Day of all humanity the world's
states are
tending, and they will reach their goal at last because it is God's Plan
that they shall.
Wisdom in planning, confidence in endeavour, and a joyous outlook night
and day to all things in life are his who thus sees God's world and man's world
illumined by Theosophy.
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From strength to
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