The changing world, and lectures to theosophical students.: Fifteen lectures delivered in London during May, June, and July, 1909Besant, Annie
Religion
The changing world, and lectures to theosophical students.: Fifteen lectures delivered in London during May, June, and July, 1909
Besant, Annie
Theosophy; Theosophy -- Study and teaching
out so strongly in their great Faith. Rather will they bring to you in
exchange the doctrine of the immanence of God. Two things, Dr. Miller
has written, Hindūism brings to the world: the immanence of God, and the
solidarity of man. When religions exchange their best instead of finding
out each other’s weaknesses, then you have outlined the religion of the
future. Our work in that future is to continue what we have so well
begun, and spread this liberal, thoughtful, religious ideal through all
religions, destroying none, but permeating all.
Next we have to consider what we ought to do in the training of the
next generation; for there is great need that the Theosophical ideal of
education should spread through Western minds, and especially through
Britain and its empire. Religious education at the present time is in
peril; how great that peril is may be measured by the Moral Education
Congress gathered together in London last year to try to find a moral
basis that should furnish education apart from all the sanctions of
religion—a hopeless task, but none the less a sign of the peril of the
times. Now, we have had secular education in India. It has been the
English education the Government has given there. It could not give any
other because of the different religions of the country, and it was bound
not to help any one of these to the detriment of the others. The moral
result has been disastrous. It has fostered selfishness, indifference to
the country, lack of public spirit. It has given us a race of men who
have acquired from the West its superficial qualities, but not its inner
strength, not its inner capacity. And the troubles you have in India now
are largely the result of this anti-religious education, which has made
hundreds of the best Indian type skeptics, a thing which has only been
checked with the growth of the Theosophical Society throughout India. We
have turned back that irreligious wave, with the result that the Indian
Government to-day regards the Theosophical Society as the most likely
agency for training the youth of India along lines of freedom and order
at the same time. They realise that we have put our finger on the weak
point in their own system, and that our plan of giving to the child the
religion of his parents is really the way to solve that religious problem
in India. Now, over here you have to face the problem how to preserve
religion while letting dogmatism go; how to find a common ground, a few
common principles, which all Christians inculcate, leaving to a later
time in life the special sectarian divisions which the young man and
woman can acquire later if they wish. Now, in that the Theosophical
Society may well play a great part in the immediate future, strengthening
all the influences which make for the keeping of religion as an integral
part of education, helping to soften the bitter sectarianism, and
persuade the different denominations to remember that they are Christians
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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