The Ocean of TheosophyThe Path, 1893 - 154 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
Adepts admit ancient animal astral body Astral Light astral plane astral shell Astral substance Atma birth brain Buddhi called causes cents chain CHAPTER character Christian civilization clairaudiance clairvoyance consciousness cycle cyclic law death desires and passions devachan differentiation doctrine dogmatic earth Egos Egyptian entity evolved existence fact faculties force fourth principle give H. P. Blavatsky Hence heredity higher Hindus human hypnotism idea incarnation inner Jesus Jiva Kali Yuga kama loka karma kingdoms knowledge known living Lodge lower Mahatma Manas mass material matter medium mediumship ment mind Monads moral nations nature object occult organs passions and desires perfect periods of evolution person phenomena philosophy physical body plane present psychic race reïncarnation religion result Sanscrit septenary seven globes sevenfold skandhas solar soul spirit spiritualists Tanha theory Theosophical Society Theosophist Theosophy things thinker thought tion to-day visible whole Yuga
Popular passages
Page 98 - ... and so dark. 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 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.
Page 3 - Its source is in that long and unbroken line of Elder Brothers of Humanity, Beings who were perfected in this and former periods of Evolution. They have always existed as a body, all knowing each other, no matter in what part of the world they may be, all having a single doctrine, and all working for the race in many different ways.
Page 98 - For our ignorance of those ways — which one portion of mankind calls the ways of Providence, dark and intricate ; while another sees in them the action of blind Fatalism ; and a third, simple chance, with neither gods nor devils to guide them — would surely disappear, if we would but attribute all these to their correct cause. With right knowledge...
Page 98 - Through ways unmarked from guilt to punishment' — which are now the ways and the high road on which move onward the great European nations. The Western Aryans have every nation and tribe like their eastern brethren of the fifth race, their Golden and -their Iron ages, their period of comparative irresponsibility, or the Satya age of purity, while now several of them have reached their Iron Age, the Kali Yuga, an age black with horrors. This state will last . . . until we begin acting from within...