From some of the incidents in the history of the Theosophical Society we can learn almost as much as from the philosophy itself. One such period occurred at a time, now many years ago, when Theosophical teachings seemed to be exercising a peculiar fascination upon the mind of the day, when Theosophy, in fact, was becoming popular. News of the society was eagerly sought by the journals of the day. Presentations of Theosophical teachings were in demand both upon the lecture platform and in the press. Theosophical lodges all over the world were flourishing, and the more short-sighted among their members were satisfied that the fight had been won and that their cause was secure in the growing interest of humanity. And it was just at this time that H. P. B. expressed her sorrow that her work had so far been a failure, and that there must be some radical effort to redeem the Society from a mistake all the more dangerous because it was so deceptive. The nature of that special effort need not be indicated here since very few sincere workers remained outside the field of its benefits.
H. P. B. left us in no doubt of her meaning when she said that her work had been a comparative failure. Indeed, she explained that meaning with her usual vigor. She had created the Society to do a specific work and that work had not been done. She had labored to fashion the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity, and the only response had been an intellectual movement that had indeed aroused curiosity and inquiry, but that had little practical bearing upon the moral growth of the world. The practical and personal obligations of fraternity were almost wholly unrecognized, even by those who were loudest in their demands for teaching and advancement. And brotherhood was the one thing for which H. P. B. cared. Never had she written a line or spoken a word that were not intended as an argument for human fraternity and an incitement to its practice. No other motive underlay her enormous efforts or inspired her unresting devotion to the Society. And those for whom she had done so much seemed not even to be aware of what was expected of them, of what they had pledged themselves to perform. They seemed to be as indifferent to the regulation of their own lives as they were oblivious to the wider work of human amelioration that awaited them in vain. No wonder that H. P. B. should describe the Society as relatively a failure, that she should be indifferent to the intellectual curiosity of selfish people and the ambitions of those who thought that they were her followers, or that she should adopt new measures to remind us that our duty was not to acquire, but to bestow, or rather to acquire by bestowing.
There are points in the progress of every movement such as ours when it is profitable to compare the work that we are actually doing with the pattern that was first given to us. The Society had reached such a point at the period referred to, and we are now confronted with the same difficulties, with the same failures, and with the same need for revision. Just as a minute initial error in the angle measurements of a land surveyor may enlarge itself to vast blunders at the extremities of his lines, so the least departure from the plan set forth by the Founders of our movement may cause us not only wholly to lose sight of the goal, but may even entangle us in the meshes of the most subtle forms of a spiritual selfishness. It is so easy to juggle with our own minds, so easy to persuade ourselves that we are working for humanity when actually we are bending every effort to the acquisition of power for its own sake or to gratify an intellectual acquisitiveness that may be proper enough in its own place, but that is not Theosophy. There is hardly a limit to our capacity for self-deception, to our ability to persuade ourselves that we have motives that actually we have not. We may deceive the mind, but we cannot deceive the soul. There is no pleading before the inexorable judgment seat of Karma, no justification, no defense. And if we have allowed ourselves to postpone a practical participation in the work of Theosophical propaganda until we shall have learned something more, acquired some new vision, stirred some nerve center to activity, gained some power, then, indeed, we stand already condemned before our Higher Selves. For none of these things was asked of us. None of these things is necessary to the work that we were invited to do. That work is as plain as human words can make it, as distinct as the voice of compassion itself, for it is that voice. It is to make known to the world, to rich and poor, to learned and unlearned, those broad teachings of Theosophy that speak of unity, of the great law of cause and effect that governs alike and to one common end the sands upon the sea shore, and the suns in unimagined depths of space, and the hearts and minds of men. It was to speak to humanity of an eternal justice working ever at the loom of human fate, attentive to all little things of life, compelling all men, even through tears and pain, into the ultimate paths of fraternity. It was by our work among men and by our forgetfulness of our intellectual curiosity and our “occult” ambition that we were to be judged as Theosophists, and not by our capacities of mystic vision or our knowledge of the finer forces of nature, or our obeisances toward our fellow members, or our ecstatic contemplation of the wonders that the future may hold. It was a Master who said: “They who live the life shall know of the doctrine.” And the life is one of unobtrusive service, desiring nothing for self, neither knowledge, nor power, nor human praise. If there is a doctrine that comes in any other way than this, it is a false doctrine.
No argument is possible against self-deception. Nor is there a remedy except that of an unflinching self-analysis. But there may be warnings, uttered first of all for self-guidance and then as an appeal to those who have listened to the subtle persuasions of self that are never so fatal as when they come in the assumed garb of altruism. Those who postpone the simple and practical teaching of Theosophy until they shall first have won some imagined great thing for themselves are postponing it until the hand of a retributive sorrow shall arouse them from that dream. For it was born of a lie. The future will never come. The only time for work is the present, for the night cometh when no man can work.
How vast a gain for humanity might already have been won if the thousands of Theosophists throughout the world had bent themselves single-minded to the greatest and yet the simplest task that was ever given into human hands. How many asperities might not have been softened, how many hatreds assuaged, how many luminous points of spirituality created in the vast fields of human life that are now so dark. If we had done our duty, if we had only tried to do our duty, there would not to-day be a single mind in civilization to which at least the opportunity of Theosophic light had not been presented, and there is no human mind that will wholly and utterly reject the basic conceptions of the unity of life, of reincarnation, of the laws of periodicity, of cause and effect in the moral world, of order, design and intention in human life. And what is it that we have been doing in place of our duty? Let us review for ourselves the whole field of present Theosophical activities and decide for ourselves how much of it is calculated to touch the heart of the world, to make life worth living and death worth dying to those millions who now believe themselves to be the sport of a cruel fate, or leaves driven over the ground by careless winds. And our mission was to those millions, not only to the few whose cultivated minds are eager for new and obscure facts in human psychology or in the secrets of nature. Our mission was to explain the great laws of life to those who most need that knowledge, to those in whom ignorance of law has bred hate and revenge, to those who sit despairing in the dark places of the world, to those who see visions and dream dreams of violence, and of the passions that wreck and kill. Once more let us look over the field of our work and decide for ourselves how far we have fulfilled that mission, how far we have even tried to do it. Let us compare our achievements with the pattern and the model already given to us. There is none among us who has the right to put any other upon the defensive, to demand explanations, or to condemn. But in the silences of meditation we may, indeed we must, do these things for ourselves.
And if, in the silences we hear the voice of self-condemnation, it is well for us that it should come now and by our own invitation. It is well for us that it should come before that last and great illumination when the Soul gathers to itself its harvest of deeds, when no crooked path can be straightened, no error undone. Otherwise it may be that for untold ages to come we shall be knit up with the bitter fruits of our own neglect, bound helplessly to the burden of responsibility for the evils that might never have been.