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
THEO. The Theosophical ideas of charity mean _personal_ exertion for
others; _personal_ mercy and kindness; _personal_ interest in the
welfare of those who suffer; _personal_ sympathy, forethought
and assistance in their troubles or needs. We Theosophists do
not believe in giving money (N.B., if we had it) through other
people’s hands or organizations. We believe in giving to the
money a thousandfold greater power and effectiveness by our
personal contact and sympathy with those who need it. We believe
in relieving the starvation of the soul, as much if not more than
the emptiness of the stomach; for gratitude does more good to
the man who feels it, than to him for whom it is felt. Where’s
the gratitude which your “millions of pounds” should have called
forth, or the good feelings provoked by them? Is it shown in
the hatred of the East-End poor for the rich? in the growth of
the party of anarchy and disorder? or by those thousands of
unfortunate working girls, victims to the “sweating” system,
driven daily to eke out a living by going on the streets? Do
your helpless old men and women thank you for the workhouses; or
your poor for the poisonously unhealthy dwellings in which they
are allowed to breed new generations of diseased, scrofulous
and rickety children, only to put money into the pockets of the
insatiable Shylocks who own houses? Therefore it is that every
sovereign of all those “millions,” contributed by good and
would-be charitable people, falls like a burning curse instead
of a blessing on the poor whom it should relieve. We call this
_generating national Karma_, and terrible will be its results on
the day of reckoning.
THEOSOPHY FOR THE MASSES.
ENQ. And you think that Theosophy would, by stepping in, help to remove
these evils, under the practical and adverse conditions of our
modern life?
THEO. Had we more money, and had not most of the Theosophists to work
for their daily bread, I firmly believe we could.
ENQ. How? Do you expect that your doctrines could ever take hold of the
uneducated masses, when they are so abstruse and difficult that
well-educated people can hardly understand them?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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