The Key to Theosophy: Being a Clear Exposition, in the Form of Question and Answer, of the Ethics, Science and Philosophy for the Study of Which the Theosophical Society Has Been FoundedBlavatsky, H. P. (Helena Petrovna)
Religion
The Key to Theosophy: Being a Clear Exposition, in the Form of Question and Answer, of the Ethics, Science and Philosophy for the Study of Which the Theosophical Society Has Been Founded
Blavatsky, H. P. (Helena Petrovna)
Theosophy
which is ever uppermost in the minds of the “world renowned”
philanthropists. Modern ethics are beautiful to read about and
hear discussed; but what are words unless converted into actions?
Finally: if you ask me how we understand Theosophical duty
practically and in view of Karma, I may answer you that our duty
is to drink without a murmur to the last drop, whatever contents
the cup of life may have in store for us, to pluck the roses of
life only for the fragrance they may shed on _others_, and to be
ourselves content but with the thorns, if that fragrance cannot be
enjoyed without depriving some one else of it.
ENQ. All this is very vague. What do you do more than Christians do?
THEO. It is not what we members of the Theosophical Society do—though
some of us try our best—but how much farther Theosophy leads to
good than modern Christianity does. I say—_action_, enforced
action, instead of mere intention and talk. A man may be what he
likes, the most worldly, selfish and hard-hearted of men, even a
deep-dyed rascal, and it will not prevent him from calling himself
a Christian, or others from so regarding him. But no Theosophist
has the right to this name, unless he is thoroughly imbued with
the correctness of Carlyle’s truism: “The end of man is an
_action_ and not a _thought_, though it were the noblest”—and
unless he sets and models his daily life upon this truth. The
profession of a truth is not yet the enactment of it; and the more
beautiful and grand it sounds, the more loudly virtue or duty is
talked about instead of being acted upon, the more forcibly it
will always remind one of the Dead Sea fruit. _Cant_ is the most
loathsome of all vices; and _cant_ is the most prominent feature
of the greatest Protestant country of this century—England.
ENQ. What do you consider as due to humanity at large?
THEO. Full recognition of equal rights and privileges for all, and
without distinction of race, colour, social position, or birth.
ENQ. When would you consider such due not given?
THEO. When there is the slightest invasion of another’s right—be that
other a man or a nation; when there is any failure to show him the
same justice, kindness, consideration or mercy which we desire for
ourselves. The whole present system of politics is built on the
oblivion of such rights, and the most fierce assertion of national
selfishness. The French say: “Like master, like man”; they ought
to add, “Like national policy, like citizen.”
ENQ. Do you take any part in politics?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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