One has to be thoroughly impressed with an idea, which I have in vain endeavored to impart to Theosophists at large, namely, the great axiomatic truth that the only eternal and living Reality is . . . the one ever-existing Root-Essence, immutable and unknowable to our physical senses, but manifest and clearly perceptible to our spiritual natures. Once imbued with that basic idea, and the further conception that if It is omnipresent, universal and eternal, like abstract Space itself, we must have emanated from It and we must, some day, return into It, and all the rest becomes easy . . . Real life is in the spiritual consciousness of that life, in a conscious existence in Spirit, not Matter; and real death is the limited perception of life, and the impossibility of sensing conscious or even individual existence outside of form, or at least, of some form of Matter. (S.D. 3:542–543.)
That which lives and thinks in man, and which survives that frame, the masterpiece of evolution, is the “Eternal Pilgrim,” the Protean differentiation in Space and Time of the One Absolute “Unknowable.” (S.D. 2:768–769.)
There is only one life, one consciousness. It masquerades under all the different forms of sentient beings, and these varying forms with their intelligence mirror a portion of the ONE LIFE, thus producing in each a false sense of egoism. A continuance of belief in that false ego produces a continuance of ignorance, thus delaying salvation. The beginning of the effort to dissipate this false belief is the beginning of the Path; the total dissipation of it is the perfection of Yoga, or union with God. The entry upon that Path cannot be made until resignation is consummated. (William Q. Judge: The Path, 2:328.)
There is but one indivisible and absolute Omniscience and Intelligence in the Universe, and this thrills throughout every atom and infinitesimal point of the whole Kosmos. (S.D. 1:208.)
Thus proceed the cycles of the septenary evolution, in Seven-fold Nature; the spiritual or divine; the psychic or semi-divine; the intellectual; the passional; the instinctual, or cognitional; the semi-corporeal; and the purely material or physical natures. All these evolve and progress cyclically, passing from one into another, in a double, centrifugal and centripetal, way, one in their ultimate essence, seven in their aspects. . . . Thus far, for individual, human, sentient, animal and vegetable life, each the microcosm of its higher macrocosm. The same for the Universe, which manifests periodically, for purposes of the collective progress of the countless Lives, the outbreathings of the One Life; in order that, through the Ever-Becoming, every cosmic atom in this infinite Universe . . . may reach, through individual merits and efforts, that plane where it re-becomes the One Unconditioned ALL. (S.D. 1:288.)
The Spiritual Monad is ONE, Universal, Boundless and Impartite, whose Rays, nevertheless, form what we, in our ignorance, call the “Individual Monads” of men. (S.D. 1:200.)
Each human being is an incarnation of his God. . . . As many men on earth, so many Gods in Heaven; and yet those Gods are in reality ONE, for at the end of every period of activity, they are withdrawn, like the rays of the setting sun, into the Parent Luminary. (S. D. 2:450.)
Many have written and expressed their desire to unite themselves with their Higher Ego, yet none seem to know the indissoluble link connecting their “Higher Egos” with the One Universal SELF. . . . Let us study Man, therefore; but if we separate him for one moment from the Universal Whole, or view him in isolation, from a single aspect, apart from . . . the Universe . . . we shall either land in Black Magic or fail most ingloriously in our attempt. (S.D. 3:436–437.)
The materialistic and scientific investigator, the mere alchemist, the man who dives into the occult moved by the desire for gain to himself, will none of them be able to cross the gulf at all, because they do not admit the indwelling Spirit, the Knower. The superior nature can be known because it is in fact the Knower who resides in every human being who has not degraded himself utterly. But this must be admitted before any approach to the light can be made. And but few are really willing, and many are unable, to admit the universal character of the Self. They sometimes think they do so by admitting the Self as present, as contiguous, as perhaps part-tenant. This is not the admission, it leaves them still separate from the Self. (William Q. Judge: The Path, 10:252.)
Krishna warns Arjuna also against inactivity from a false view of the philosophy. This warning necessary then is so still. On hearing this philosophy for the first time many say that it teaches inaction, sitting still, silence. And in India great numbers taking that view, retired from life and its duties, going into the caves and jungles away from men. Krishna says:
“Firmly persisting in yoga, perform thy duty.”
To endeavor to follow these rules empirically, without understanding the philosophy and without making the fundamental doctrines a part of oneself, will lead to nothing but disgust and failure. Hence the philosophy must be understood. It is the philosophy of Oneness or Unity. The Supreme Self is one and includes all apparent others. We delude ourselves with the idea that we are separate. We must admit that we and every other person are the Self. (William Q. Judge: The Path, 10:181.)
The foregoing extracts, taken from among thousands with which the writings of Madame Blavatsky and Mr. Judge are filled, are presented for the consideration of my fellow students. They indicate not only the core of the philosophy of the WISDOM-RELIGION, but the core of all things, the great and the small; man, as well as the Universe. For unless Man is identical with the Absolute unmanifested, and also with the Deity as we see It manifested in Nature, how can we aspire to “know God?” I know well that this theory is easy for some and difficult for others. The difficulty arises chiefly from the influence of centuries of education in the degrading doctrine that all are originally sinful. If we are originally sinful we must be inherently imperfect, and that which is inherently imperfect can never, by any possibility, become perfect. Many have not been directly taught this doctrine of original imperfection, but all their thoughts have been insensibly affected by it. God has been continually held up to us as a being outside or different from us, and hence we tacitly hold the doctrine of inherent weakness and imperfection. In essence, in possibility of soul and spirit, we are all perfect. So long as we deny this we prevent progress and keep back the exhibition of the actual spiritual perfection we have at the center.
We all know well that Krishna taught that Man is a “portion of the Supreme Spirit.” We know that the very name of Buddha, no less than that of Krishna and of Christ, bears the signification of one who has reached union with the Divine. This doctrine of perfectibility—that Man in his essence is God—is “even the same exhaustless, secret, eternal doctrine” communicated by the Messengers of Theosophy, as by all other avatars of the Great White Lodge.
What we are to do is to make this doctrine a part of ourselves—to dwell on it constantly, day in and day out, until realization begins to dawn on us. Thought arouses feeling; right thought and feeling awake the spiritual Will; this union of Thought, Will, and Feeling constitutes the Divine Mind. Ordinarily we deny our own nature with every thought and act, for our every thought and act are predicated on “the heresy of separateness.”
We must acknowledge the Source. We must live what we know; unless we live it we cannot know it. None other can live it for us; none other can know it for us. Whatever is to be known, I must know it, or it does not exist for me. Whatever is, I must be it, or it is not for me. We must think, we must act, we must live for and as the SELF. This Unity is the basis of all vital ideas of Universal Brotherhood; this actual living of Brotherhood is the basis of all realization of the Supreme, of all knowledge and all power.
My Brothers! “The oneness of the Soul with the SELF is already a fact, and not a thing that requires a further effort to bring about; and therefore the recognition of the truth of the text ‘That Thou Art’ is sufficient to put an end to the idea of the personality of the Soul, in the same way as the recognition of the piece of rope is sufficient to abolish the snake that fictitiously represents itself in place of the piece of rope. No sooner is the idea of the personality of the Soul denied than the whole empirical habitual order of life disappears with it, to make up which the lower and plural manifestation of the Self falsely presents itself.”
How are we to achieve this “recognition?” “By doing service, by strong search, by questions, and by humility”—by the performance of “the whole empirical habitual order of life” from the basis of Unity and for the sake of Brotherhood. Namaste!