The Ocean of TheosophyTheosophical publishing Company, 1893 - 154 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
144 Madison A. P. Sinnett Adepts admit ancient animal astral body Astral Light astral model astral plane astral shell Astral substance Atma birth Brahma brain Buddhi called cause chain Christian civilization clairvoyance consciousness constitution cycle cyclic law death devachan differentiation doctrine dogma earth Egos Egyptian elder brothers entity ethereal evolved existence fact faculties force H. P. Blavatsky Hence heredity Hindus human hypnotism idea incarnation inner Jesus Jiva kama loka karma kingdoms knowledge known living Lodge Mahatma Manas mass material matter medium mediumship ment mind Monads moral nations nature object occult organs passions and desires perfect period of evolution person phenomena philosophy physical body plane planetary Prana present principle psychical reïncarnation religion root race round Sanscrit septenary seven globes sevenfold skandhas soul spirit spiritualists teaching theory Theosophical Society Theosophist Theosophy things thought tion to-day universe visible whole Yuga
Popular passages
Page 98 - We stand bewildered before the mystery of our own making, and the riddles of life that we will not solve, and then accuse the great Sphinx of devouring us. But verily there is not an accident in our lives, not a misshapen day, or a misfortune, that could not be traced back to our own doings in this or in another life. If one breaks the laws of Harmony, or, as a theosophical writer expresses it, "the laws of life," one must be prepared to fall into the chaos one has oneself produced.
Page 5 - How do you know they have made no such mark ? Are you acquainted with their efforts, successes, and failures ? Have you any dock upon which to arraign them ? How could your world collect proofs of the doings of men who have sedulously kept closed every possible door of approach by which the inquisitive could spy upon them? The prime condition of their success was that they should never be supervised or obstructed. What they have done they know ; all that those outside their circle could perceive...
Page 91 - The Books say well, my Brothers ! each man's life The outcome of his former living is; The bygone wrongs bring forth sorrows and woes The bygone right breeds bliss. That which ye sow ye reap. See yonder fields ! The sesamum was sesamum, the corn Was corn. The Silence and the Darkness knew!. So is a man's fate born.
Page 5 - ... they have done they know; all that those outside their circle could perceive was results, the causes of which were masked from view. To account for these results, men have, in different ages, invented theories of the interposition of gods special providences, fates, the benign or hostile influence of the stars. There never was a time within or before the socalled historical period when our predecessors were not moulding events and ' making history,' the facts of which were subsequently and invariably...
Page 5 - ... the facts of which were subsequently and invariably distorted by historians to suit contemporary prejudices. Are you quite sure that the visible heroic figures in the successive dramas were not often but their puppets ? We never pretended to be able to draw nations in the mass to this or that crisis in spite of the general drift of the world's cosmic relations. The cycles must run their rounds. Periods of mental and moral light and darkness succeed each other as day does night. The major and...
Page 98 - ... two-thirds of the World's evil would vanish into thin air. Were no man to hurt his brother, Karma-Nemesis would have neither cause to work for, nor weapons to act through. It is the constant presence in our midst of every element of strife and opposition, and the division of races, nations, tribes, societies and individuals into Cains and Abels, wolves and lambs, that is the chief cause of the
Page 5 - Nature, yet you lire content to spend your life in a work which aids only that same exact science. . . . " Of your several questions we will first discuss, if you please, the one relating to the presumed failure of the ' Fraternity' to ' leave any mark upon the history of the world.