AE in the Irish TheosophistRussell, George William
Religion
AE in the Irish Theosophist
Russell, George William
Theosophy
For the first object no explanation is necessary; but a word or
two of comment upon the second and third may help to show how they
do not weaken, by turning into other channels, the intellectual
energies and will, which might serve to carry out the first. In
these old philosophies of the East we find the stimulus to brotherly
action which might not be needed in an ideal state, but which is
a help to the many, who, born into the world with a coldness of
heart as their heritage, still wish to do their duty. Now out duty
alters according to our conception of nature, and in the East there
has been put forward, by men whom we believe to be the wise and
great of the earth, a noble philosophy, a science of life itself,
and this, not as a hypothesis, but as truth which is certain, truth
which has been verified by eyes which see deeper than ours, and
proclaimed by the voices of those who have become the truth they
speak of; for as Krishna teaches Arjuna in the Dayanishvari:
"on this Path to whatever place one would go that place one's self
becomes!" The last word of this wisdom is unity. Underneath all
phenomena and surviving all changes, a great principle endures
for ever. At the great white dawn of existence, from this principle
stream spirit and primordial matter; as they flow away further
from their divine source, they become broken up, the one life into
countless lives, matter into countless forms, which enshrine these
lives; spirit involves itself into matter and matter evolves,
acted upon by this informing fire.
These lives wander on through many a cycle's ebb and flow, in
separation and sorrow, with sometimes the joy of a momentary meeting.
Only by the recognition of that unity, which spiritually is theirs,
can they obtain freedom.
It is true in the experience of the race that devotion of any life
to universal ends brings to that life a strange subtle richness and
strength; by our mood we fasten ourselves into the Eternal; hence
these historic utterances, declarations of permanence and a spiritual
state of consciousness, which have been the foundation of all great
religious movements. Christ says, "I and my Father are one."
"Before Abraham was I am." Paul says, "In him we live and move
and have our being."
In the sacred books of India it is the claim of many sages that
they have recognised "the ancient constant and eternal which perishes
not through the body be slain," and there are not wanting to-day
men who speak of a similar expansion of their consciousness, out
of the gross and material, into more tender, wise and beautiful
states of thought and being. Tennyson, in a famous letter published
some time ago, mentioned that he had at different times experienced
such a mood; the idea of death was laughable; it was not thought,
but a state; "the clearest of the clearest, the surest of the surest."
It would be easy to do on multiplying instances.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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