H.
P. BLAVATSKY QUOTATION BOOK
SELECTIONS FOR DAILY READING
THEOSOPHY COMPANY (INDIA) BOMBAY
First Edition
1954
Second Reprint
1961
Third Reprint
1973
Fourth Reprint
1991
Printed by PP. Bhagwat at Mouj Printing Bureau. Khatau Wadi. Girgaum.
Bombay 400 004 and published by Gopal Thakur for Theosophy
Co. (India) Private Ltd.. at Theosophy Hall, 40. New Marine Lines.
Bombay 400 020.
PREFACE
We publish here quotations from the books and articles
of Madame H. P. Blavatsky, who restated the teachings of Theosophy
for our era. These selections, made by a student of the United Lodge of
Theosophists, one for each day in the year, offer moral instruction and
encouragement, mental enlightenment and spiritual inspiration to him who will
take them as seed-thoughts for meditation. Brooded over, each will yield
its meed of light, of solace and of strength.
PUBLISHERS
22nd October 1954
JANUARY
FEBRUARY
MARCH
APRIL MAY
JUNE
JULY
AUGUST
SEPTEMBER
OCTOBER
NOVEMBER
DECEMBER
JANUARY
1st. Everyone lives, and thinks, and speaks. If all endeavoured to learn
the art of making life not only beautiful but divine, and vowed no longer to be
hampered by disbelief in the possibility of this miracle, but to commence the
Herculean task at once, then the coming year will have been fitly ushered in by
the gleaming star.
—Foreword, U.L.T. Pamphlet No. 28
2nd. There is no miracle. Everything that happens is the result of
law—eternal, immutable, ever active.
Isis Unveiled, II, 587
3rd. January 3 . . . was consecrated to Minerva-Athene the goddess of
wisdom and to Isis, “she who generates life,” the ancient lady patroness
of the good city of Lutetia.
—U.L.T. Pamphlet No. 28, 5-6
4th. It is January the 4th which ought to be selected by the
Theosophists—the Esotericists especially—as their New Year. January is under the
sign of Capricornus, the mysterious Makara of the Hindu Mystics—the
“Kumaras,” it being stated, having incarnated in man-kind under the 10th sign of
the Zodiac. For ages the 4th of January has been sacred to Mercury-Budha, or
Thoth-Hermes. Thus everything combines to make of it a festival to be held by
those who study ancient Wisdom.
—UL.T. Pamphlet No. 28
5th. The WISDOM-RELIGION was ever one, and being the last word of possible
human knowledge, was, therefore, carefully preserved. It preceded by long ages
the Alexandrian Theosophists, reached the modern, and will survive every other
religion and philosophy.
—The Key to Theosophy, 7-8
6th. The radical unity of the ultimate essence of each constituent part of
compounds in Nature—from Star to mineral Atom, from the highest Dhyan Chohan to
the smallest infusoria, in the fullest acceptation of the term, and whether
applied to the spiritual, intellectual. or physical worlds—this is the one
fundamental law in Occult Science.
—The Secret Doctrine, I, 120
7th. Before the Soul can see the Harmony within must be attained, and
fleshly eyes rendered blind to (all illusion.
—The Voice of the Silence, 2
8th. No man can swim unless he enters deep water. No bird can fly unless its
wings are grown, and it has space before it and courage to trust itself to the
air. A man who will wield a two-edged sword, must be a thorough master of the
blunt weapon, if he would not injure himself—or what is worse—others, at the
first attempt.
—Raja-Yoga or Occultism, 19
( 9th. “A harsh word uttered in past lives is not destroyed, but ever
comes again.” The pepper plant will not give birth to roses, nor the sweet
jessamine’s silver star to thorn or thistle turn.
—The Voice of the Silence, 37
10th. The supreme power whom we revere is the boundless and endless
one—the grand “CENTRAL SPIRITUAL SUN” by whose attributes and the visible
effects of whose inaudible WILL we are surrounded—the God of the ancient
and the God of modern seers. His nature can be studied only in the worlds called
forth by his mighty FIAT.
—Isis Unveiled. I, 29
11th. Karma is the unerring law which adjusts effect / to cause, on the
physical, mental and spiritual planes of being.
—The Key to Theosophy, 199
12th. The Monads cycling round any septenary chain are divided into seven
classes or hierarchies according to their respective stages of evolution,
Consciousness, and merit.
—The Secret Doctrine, I, 171
13th. The “Higher Ego,” as part of the essence of the UNIVERSAL MIND, IS
unconditionally omniscient on its own plane, and only potentially so in our
terrestrial sphere. as it has to act solely through its alter ego—the
Personal Self.
—Raja-Yoga or Occultism, 67
14th. Ere thy Soul’s mind can understand, the bud of personality must be
crushed out; the worm of sense destroyed past resurrection.
—The Voice of the Silence, 13
15th. Theosophy considers humanity as an emanation from divinity on its
return path thereto.
—The Key to Theosophy, 214
16th.
The essence of Theosophy is the
perfect harmonizing of the divine with the human in man, the adjustment of his
god-like qualities and aspirations, and their sway over the terrestrial or
animal passions in him. Kindness, absence of every ill feeling or selfishness,
charity, good-will to all beings, and perfect justice to others as to one’s
self, are its chief features.
—Five Messages, 6-7
17th. Theosophy gives a clear and well-defined object, an ideal to live for,
to every sincere man or woman belonging to whatever station in Society and of
what-ever culture and degree of intellect. Practical Theosophy is not one
Science, but embraces every science
life, moral and physical. —U.L.T. Pamphlet No. 1, 7
18th. To live to benefit mankind is the first step. practise the six
glorious virtue is the second.
—The Voice of Ike Silence, 36
19th. When a thought of good or evil import is begotten in our brain, it
draws to it impulses of like nature as irresistibly as the magnet
attracts iron filings.
—Isis Unveiled, I, 181
20th. In each of us that golden thread of continuous life—periodically
broken into active and passive cycles of sensuous existence on Earth, and
supersensuous in Devachan—is from the beginning of our appearance upon this
earth. It is the Sutratma, the luminous thread of immortal impersonal
monad-ship, on which our earthly lives or evanescent Egos are strung
as so many beads—according to the beautiful expression of Vedantic philosophy.
—The Secret Doctrine, II, 513
21st. From strength to strength, from the beauty and perfection of one plane
to the greater beauty and perfection of another, with accessions of new glory,
of fresh knowledge and power in each cycle, such is the destiny of every Ego,
which thus becomes its own Saviour in each world and incarnation.
—The Key to Theosophy, 152
22nd. Imagination is a potent help in every event of our lives. Imagination
acts on Faith. and both are the draughtsmen who prepare the sketches for Will
to engrave, more or less deeply, on the rocks of obstacles and opposition
with which the path of life is strewn.
—Raja- Yoga or Occultism, 131-2
23rd. Thou shalt not let thy senses make a p1ay ground of thy mind.
—The Voice of the Silence, 5
24th. Men and parties, sects and schools are but the mere ephemera of the
world’s day. TRUTH, high-seated upon its rock of adamant, is alone
eternal and supreme.
—Isis Unveiled, Preface, v
25th. The rose must re-become the bud, born of its parent stem, before the
parasite has eaten through its heart and drunk its life-sap.
—The Voice of the Silence, 18
26th. To seek to achieve political reforms before we have effected a reform
in human nature, is like putting new wine into old bottles. Make men feel
and recognise in their innermost hearts what is their real, true duty to all
men, and every old abuse of power, every
iniquitous law in the national policy, based on human, social or political
selfishness, will disappear of itself.
—The Key to Theosophy, 229
27th. . . . man ought to be ever striving to help the divine
evolution of Ideas, by becoming to the best of his
ability a co-worker with nature in the cyclic task.
—The Secret Doctrine, I, 280 —
28th. The Mind is the great Slayer of the Real. Let the Disciple
slay the Slayer.
—The Voice of the Silence, 2
29th. That which makes one mortal a great man and of another a vulgar, silly
person is. . . the quality and makeup of the physical shell or casing, and the
adequacy or inadequacy of brain and body to transmit and give expression to the
light of the real, Inner man; and this aptness or inaptness is, in its
turn, the result of Karma.
—U.L.T. Pamphlet No. 13, 3
30th. The world needs no sectarian church, whether of Buddha, Jesus,
Mahomet, Swedenborg, Calvin, or any other. There being but ONE Truth man
requires but one church—the Temple of God within us, walled in by matter but
penetrable by any one who can the way; the pure in heart see God.
—Isis Unveiled, II, 635
31st. The pupil must regain the child-state he has lost ere
the first sound can fall upon his ear.
—The Voice of the Silence, 19
FEBRUARY
1st. Occultism teaches that physical man is one, but the thinking man
septenary, thinking, acting, feeling, and living on seven different states of
being or planes of consciousness, and that for all these states and planes the
permanent Ego.. . has a distinct set of senses.
---Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge, 73
2nd. Restrain by thy Divine thy lower Self. Restrain by the Eternal the
Divine. Aye, great is he, who is the slayer of desire. Still greater he. in whom
the Self Divine has slain the very knowledge of desire.
—The Voice of the Silence, 41
3rd. All good and evil things in humanity have their roots in human
character, and this character is, and has been, conditioned by the endless chain
of cause and effect. But this conditioning applies to the future as well as to
the present and the past.
—The Key to Theosophy, 232
4th. The whole order of nature evinces a progressive march towards a
higher life. There is design in the action of the seemingly blindest forces.
The whole process of evolution with its endless adaptations is a proof of this.
—The Secret Doctrine, I, 277
5th. Beware of fear that spreadeth, like the black and soundless wings of
midnight bat, between the moonlight of thy Soul and thy great goal that loometh
in the distance far away.
—The Voice of the Silence, 58
6th. To become a genuine spiritual entity, which- that designation [MAN]
implies, man must first create himself anew, so to speak—i.e., thoroughly
eliminate from his mind and spirit, not only the dominating influence of
selfishness and other impurity, but also the infection of superstition and
prejudice.
—Isis Unveiled, I, 39
7th. Outside a certain highly spiritual and elevated state of mind, during which
Man is at one with the UNIVERSAL MIND—he can get nought on earth but
relative truth, or truths, from whatsoever philosophy or religion.
—U.L.T. Pamphlet No. 17, 11
8th. Occultism regards every atom as an “independent entity” and every cell
as a “conscious unit.” It explains that no sooner do such atoms group to form
cells, than the latter become endowed with consciousness, each of its own kind,
and with free-will to act within the limits of laws
—Raja-Yoga or Occultism, 65
9th. Eternal life’s pure waters, clear and crystal, with the monsoon
tempest’s muddy torrents cannot mingle.
—The Voice of the Silence, 12
10th. Our Deity is the eternal, incessantly evolving, not
creating, builder of the universe; that universe itself unfolding out
of its own essence, not being made.
—The Key to Theosophy, 65
11th. Unless the flesh is passive, head cool, the Soul as firm and pure as
flaming diamond, the radiance will not reach the chamber, its sunlight
will not warm the heart, nor will the mystic sounds of the Akasic heights reach
the ear, however eager, at the initial stage.
—The Voice of the Silence, 19
12th. The unity of God, the immortality of the spirit. belief in salvation
only through our works, merit and demerit; such are the principal articles of
faith of the Wisdom-religion.
—Isis Unveiled, II, 116
13th. The Masters require only that each shall do his best, and,
above all, that each shall strive in reality to feel himself one with his
fellow-workers.
—Five Messages, 24
14th. Ere thou canst settle in Dhyana-Marga and call it thine, thy Soul has
to become as the ripe mango fruit: as soft and sweet as its bright golden pulp
for others’ woes, as hard as that fruit’s stone for thine own throes and
sorrows, O Conqueror of Weal and Woe.
—The Voice of the Silence, 65-6
15th. It is an occult law, moreover, that no man can rise superior to his
individual failings, without lifting, be it ever so little, the whole body of
which he is an integral part. In the same way, no one can sin, nor suffer the
effects of sin, alone.
—The Key to Theosophy, 201
16th. The closer the approach to one’s Prototype, “in Heaven,” the
better for the mortal whose personality was chosen, by his own personal
deity (the seventh principle), as its terrestrial abode. For, with every effort
of will toward purification and unity with that “Selfgod,” one of the lower rays
breaks and the spiritual entity of man is drawn higher and ever higher to the
ray that supersedes the first, until, from ray to ray. the inner man is drawn
into the one and highest beam of that Parent-SUN.
—The: Secret Doctrine, I, 638-9
17th. Before the Soul can comprehend and may remember, she must unto the
Silent Speaker be united, just as the form to which the clay is modelled is
first united with the potter’s mind.
—The Voice of the Silence, 3
18th. This “secret doctrine” contains the alpha and the omega of universal
science; therein lies the corner and the keystone of all the ancient and modern
knowledge; and alone in this “unphilosophical” doctrine remains buried the
absolute in the philosophy of the dark problems of life and death.
—Isis Unveiled, I. 511
19th. These great Mahatmas, or Buddhas, are a universal and common property:
they are historical sages —at any rate, for all the Occultists who
believe in such a hierarchy of Sages, the existence of which has been proved to
them by the learned ones of the
Fraternity
—The Secret Doctrine, II, 423
20th. The human brain is simply the canal between two planes—-the
psycho-spiritual and the material— through which every abstract and metaphysical
idea filters from the Manasic down to the lower human consciousness.
—U.L.T. Pamphlet No. 25, 5
21st. False learning is rejected by the Wise, and scattered to the Winds
by the Good Law. Its wheel revolves for all, the humble and the proud. The
“Doctrine of the Eye” is for the crowd; the “Doctrine of the Heart” for the
elect. The first repeat in pride:
Behold, I know”; the last, they who in humbleness have garnered, low confess:
“Thus have I heard.”
—The Voice of the Silence, 29-30
22nd. The infusion of a little practical Theosophy would help a
hundred times more in life the poor suffering masses than all this infusion of
(useless) intelligence.
—The Key to Theosophy, 262
23rd.
The whole essence of truth
cannot be transmitted from mouth to ear. Nor can any pen describe it, not
even that of the recording Angel, unless man finds the answer in the sanctuary
of his own heart, in the innermost depths of his divine intuitions.
—The Secret Doctrine, II, 516
24th. Magic was considered a divine science which led to a participation in the
attributes of Divinity itself.
—Isis Unveiled, I, 25
25th. Search for the Paths. But, 0 Lanoo, be of clean heart before thou
startest on thy journey. Before thou takest thy first step, learn to discern the
real from the false, the ever-fleeting from the everlasting. Learn above all to
separate Head-learning from Soul-wisdom, the Eye” from the “Heart’ doctrine.
—The Voice of the Silence, 27
26th. Verily that body, so desecrated by Materialism and man himself, is the
temple of the Holy Grail, the Adytum of the grandest, nay, of all, the
mysteries of nature in our solar universe.
—Raja- Yoga or Occultism, 69
27th.
For logic, consistency, profound
philosophy, divine mercy and equity, this doctrine of Reincarnation has not its
equal on earth.—The Key to Theosophy, 152
28th. Remember, thou that fightest for man’s liberation, each failure is
success, and each sincere attempt wins its reward in time. The holy germs that
sprout and grow unseen in the disciple’s soul, their stalks wax strong at each
new trial, they bend like reeds but never break, nor can they e’er be lost. But
when the hour has struck they blossom forth.
—The Voice of the Silence, 68-9
29th. The Platonic philosophy was one of order, system, and proportion; it
embraced the evolution of worlds and species, the correlation and conservation
of energy, the transmutation of material form, the indestructibility of matter
and of spirit. Their position in the latter respect being far in advance of
modern science, and binding the arch of their philosophical system with a
keystone at once perfect and immovable.
—Isis Unveiled, I, 238-9
MARCH
1st. Desire nothing. Chafe not at Karma, nor at Nature’s changeless laws.
But struggle only with the personal, the transitory, the evanescent and the
perishable.
—The Voice of the Silence, 15
2nd. No one can study ancient philosophies seriously without perceiving that
the striking similitude of conception between all—in their exoteric form very
often, in their hidden spirit invariably—is the result of no mere coincidence,
but of a concurrent design: and that there was, during the youth of mankind, one
language, one knowledge, one universal religion, when there were no churches, no
creeds or sects, but when every man was a priest unto himself.
—The Secret Doctrine, I, 341
3rd. The ethics are the soul of the Wisdom-Religion, and were once the
common property of the initiates of all nations.
—The Key to Theosophy, 14
4th. Of teachers there are many: the MASTER-SOUL is one, Alaya, the
Universal Soul. Live in that MASTER as Its ray in thee. Live in thy fellows as
they live in IT.
—The Voice of the Silence, 54
5th. Magic, White, or “Beneficent Magic,” so-called, is divine magic, devoid
of selfishness, love of power, of ambition, or lucre, and bent only on doing
good to the world in general, and one’s neighbour in particular. J
—The Theosophical Glossary, 184
6th. There is but one road to the Path; at its very end alone the “Voice of
the Silence” can be heard. The ladder by which the candidate ascends is formed
of rungs of suffering and pain, these can be silenced only by the voice of
virtue.
—The Voice of the Silence, 16
7th. The first lesson taught in Esoteric philosophy is, that the
incognizable Cause does not put forth evolution, whether consciously or
unconsciously, but only exhibits periodically different aspects of itself
to the perception of finite Minds.
----The Secret Doctrine, II, 487
8th. Theosophy, on earth, is like the white ray of the spectrum, and every
religion only one of the seven prismatic colours. Ignoring all the others, and
cursing them as false, every special coloured ray claims not only
priority, but to be that white ray itself, and anathmatizes even its own
tints from light to dark, as heresies.
—The Key to Theosophy, 58
9th. The plastic power of the imagination is much stronger in some persons
than in others. The mind is dual in its potentiality: it is physical and
metaphysical. The higher part of the mind is connected with the spiritual soul
or Buddhi, the lower with the animal soul, the Kama principle.
—Raja-Yoga or Occultism, 103-4
10th. The WISE ONES
tarry not in pleasure-grounds of senses. The WISE
ONES heed not the sweet-tongued voices of illusion.
—The Voice of the Silence, 7
11th. When one falls into a love of self and love of the world, with its
pleasures, losing the divine love of God and of the neighbour, he falls from
life to death.
—Isis Unveiled, I, 318
12th. During human life the greatest impediment in the way of spiritual
development, and especially to the acquirement of Yoga powers, is the
activity of our physiological senses.
—The Secret Doctrine, II, 296
13th. Our duty is to keep alive in man his spiritual intuitions. To oppose
and counteract—after due investigation and proof of its irrational
nature—bigotry in every form, religious, scientific, or social, and cant
above all, whether as religious sectarianism or as belief in miracles or
anything supernatural.
—The Key to Theosophy, 47
14th. Both action and inaction may find room in thee; thy body agitated, thy
mind tranquil, thy Soul as limpid as a mountain lake.
—The Voice of the Silence, 32
15th. A Religion in the true and only correct sense, is a bond uniting men
together—not a particular set of dogmas and beliefs. Now Religion, per se,
in its widest meaning is that which binds not only all MEN,
but also all BEINGS and all things in the entire Universe
into one grand whole.
—U.L.T. Pamphlet No. 1, 3
16th. Memory—the despair of the materialist, the enigma of the psychologist,
the sphinx of science—is to the student of old philosophies merely a name to
express that power which man unconsciously exerts, and shares with many of the
inferior animals—to look with inner sight into the astral light, and there
behold the images of past sensations and incidents.
—Isis Unveiled, I, 178-9
17th. Nor would the ways of Karma be inscrutable were men to work in union
and harmony, instead of disunion and strife. 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, or
at any rate with a confident conviction that our neighbours will no more work to
hurt us than we would think of harming them, the two-thirds of the World’s evil
would vanish into thin air.
—The Secret Doctrine, I, 643
18th. If thy Soul smiles while bathing in the Sunlight of thy Life; if thy
Soul sings within her chrysalis of flesh and matter; if thy Soul weeps inside
her castle of illusion; if thy soul struggles to break the silver thread that
binds her to the MASTER; know. O Disciple, thy Soul is of the earth.
—The Voice of the Silence, 3
19th. Death comes to our spiritual selves ever a a deliverer and friend.
—The Key to Theosophy, 159
20th. The Rosicrucian theory, that the whole universe is a musical
instrument, is the Pythagorean doctrine of the music of the spheres. Sounds and
colours are all spiritual numerals; as the seven prismatic rays proceed from one
spot in heaven, so the seven powers of nature. each of them a number, are the
seven radiations of the Unity, the central, spiritual SUN.
—Isis Unveiled, 1, 514
21st. Know, if of Amitabha, the “Boundless Age,” thou would’st become
co-worker, then must thou shed the light acquired, like to the Bodhisattvas
twain, upon the span of all three worlds.
—The Voice of the Silence, 72
22nd.
As the child’s first feeling is for
its mother and nurse, so the first aspirations of the awakening consciousness in
primitive man were for those whose element he felt within himself, and who yet
were outside, and independent of him. DEVOTION arose out of that feeling,
and became the first and foremost motor in his nature; for it is the only one
which is natural in our heart, which is innate in us, and which we find alike in
human babe and the young of the animal.
—The Secret Doctrine, I, 210
23rd. Every true Theosophist is morally bound to sacrifice the personal to
the impersonal, his own present good to the future benefit of
other people.
—The Key to Theosophy, 280
24th. The Ethics of Theosophy are more important than any divulgement of
psychic laws and facts. The latter relate wholly to the material and evanescent
part of the septenary man, but the Ethics sink into and take hold of the real
man—the reincarnating Ego. We are outwardly creatures of but a day; within we
are eternal.
—Five Messages, 26
25th.
Mind is like a mirror; it gathers
dust while it reflects. It needs the gentle breezes of Soul-Wisdom to
brush away the dust of our illusions. Seek, 0 Beginner, to blend thy Mind and
Soul.
—The Voice of the
Silence, 28
26th. Mediumship is the opposite of adeptship; the medium is the passive
instrument of foreign influences, the adept actively controls himself and all
inferior potencies.
—Isis Unveiled, II, 588
27th. Our external powers perceive phenomena; our Nous alone
is able to recognise their noumena.
—The Key to Theosophy, 93
28th. The Occult teaching says, “Nothing is created, but is only
transformed. Nothing can manifest itself in this universe—-from a globe down
to a vague, rapid thought—that was not in the universe already; everything on
the subjective plane is an eternal is; as everything on the objective plane is
an ever becoming— because transitory.”
—The Secret Doctrine, I, 570
29th. Thou hast to saturate thyself with pure Alaya, become as one with
Nature’s Soul-Thought. At one with it thou art invincible; in separation, thou
becomest the playground of Samvritti, origin of all the world’s delusions.
—The Voice of the Silence, 62
30th. Remember that the only God man comes in contact with is his own God,
called Spirit, Soul and Mind, or Consciousness, and these three are one.
—Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge, 69
31st. The only decree of Karma—an eternal and immutable decree—is absolute
Harmony in the world of matter as it is in the world of Spirit. It is
not, therefore, Karma that rewards or punishes, but it is we, who reward or
punish ourselves according to whether we work with, through and along with
nature, abiding by the laws on which that Harmony depends, or— break them.
—The Secret Doctrine, I, 643
1st. Sow kindly acts and thou shalt reap their fruition. Inaction in a
deed of mercy becomes an action in a deadly sin.
—The Voice of the Silence, 33
2nd. The Demon of Pride, Lust, Rebellion, and Hatred, has never had any
being before the appearance of physical conscious man. It is man who has
begotten, nurtured, and allowed the fiend to develop in his heart; he, again,
who has contaminated the indwelling god in himself, by linking the pure spirit
with the impure demon of matter.
—The Secret Doctrine, II, 274
3rd. For every flower of love and charity he plants in his neighbour’s
garden, a loathsome weed will disappear from his own, and so this garden of the
gods—Humanity—shall blossom as a rose.
—The Key to Theosophy, 53
4th. Theosophy claims to be both “RELIGION” and “SCIENCE,” for
Theosophy is the essence of both.
—U.L.T. Pamphlet No. 1, 15
5th.
If thou would’st have that stream
of hard-earn’d knowledge, of Wisdom heaven-born, remain sweet run- fling waters,
thou should’st not leave it to become a stagnant pond.
—The, Voice of the
Silence, 72
6th. What we desire to prove is, that underlying every ancient. popular
religion was the same ancient wisdom- doctrine, one and identical, professed and
practised by the initiates of every country, who alone were aware of its
existence and importance.
—Isis Unveiled, II, 99
7th. In our race and generation the one “temple in the Universe” is in
rare cases—within us; but our body and mind have been too defiled by both
Sin and Science to be outwardly now anything better than a fane of
iniquity and error.
—The Secret Doctrine, II, 651
8th. The Spiritual “I” in man is omniscient and has every knowledge
innate in it; while the personal self is the creature of its environment and the
slave of the physical memory. Could the former manifest itself uninterruptedly,
and without impediment, there would be no longer men on earth, but we should all
be gods.
—The Key to Theosophy, 129
9th.
This earth, Disciple, is the
Hall of Sorrow, wherein are set along the Path of dire probations, traps to
ensnare thy Ego by the delusion called “Great Heresy.”
—The Voice of the Silence, 4
10th. True Occultism or Theosophy is the “Great Renunciation of
SELF,” unconditionally and absolutely, in thought as in action. It is
ALTRUISM, and it throws him who practises it out of calculation of
the ranks of the living altogether. “Not for himself, but for the world,
he lives,” as soon as he has pledged himself to the work.
—Raja-Yoga or Occultism, 32
11th, From Gods to men, from Worlds to atoms, from a star
to a rush-light, from the Sun to the vital heat of the meanest organic being — the world of Form and Existence is an immense chain, whose links are all
connected. The law of Analogy is the first key to the World-problem, and these
links have to be studied coordinately in their occult relations to each
other.
—The Secret Doctrine, 1, 604
12th. The Akãsa is the eternal divine consciousness which
cannot differentiate, have qualities, or act: action
belongs to that which is reflected or mirrored from it.
—Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge, 96
13th. The Self of Matter and the SELF of Spirit can never meet. One of the
twain must disappear; there is no place for both.
—The Voice of the Silence,
13
14th. Harmony in the physical and mathematical world of sense, is
justice in the spiritual one. Justice produces harmony, and injustice,
discord; and discord, on a cosmical scale, means chaos—annihilation.
—Isis Unveiled, I, 330
15th. Behold how like the moon, reflected in the tranquil waves, Alaya is
reflected by the small and by the great, is mirrored in the tiniest atoms, yet
fails to reach the heart of all. Alas, that so few men should profit by the
gift, the priceless boon of learning truth, the right perception of existing
things, the knowledge of the non-existent!
—The Voice of the Silence,
26-7
16th. Occult Science has its changeless traditions from
prehistoric times. It nay err in particulars; it can
never become guilty of a mistake in questions of Universal laws, simply because
that Science, justly referred to by philosophy as the “divine,” was born
on higher planes, and was brought on Earth by beings who were wiser than man
will be, even in the seventh Race of his Seventh Round. —The Secret Doctrine,
I, 516
17th. Ignorance is like unto a closed and airless vessel; the soul a bird
shut up within. It warbles not, nor can it stir a feather; but the songster mute
and torpid sits, and of exhaustion dies.
—The Voice of the Silence, 27
18th. Reason, the outgrowth of the physical brain, develops at the
expense of instinct—the flickering reminiscence of a once divine
omniscience—Spirit.. . . Reason is the clumsy weapon of the scientists—intuition
the unerring guide of the seer.
—Isis Unveiled, 1, 433
19th. Absolute truth is the symbol of Eternity, and no finite
mind can ever grasp the eternal, hence, no truth in its fulness can ever
dawn upon it. To reach the state during which man sees and senses it, we have
to. paralyze the senses of the external man of clay.
—U.L.T. Pamphlet No 17, 5
20th.
If thou would’st Nirvana reach, or
cast the prize away,
let not the fruit of action and inaction be thy motive, thou of
dauntless heart.
—The Voice of the Silence, 44
21st. Karma creates nothing, nor does it design. It is man who plans and creates causes, and Karmic law adjusts the effects; which adjustment is not an act, but universal harmony, tending ever to resume
its original position, like a bough, which, bent down too
forcibly, rebounds with corresponding vigour. If it happen to dislocate the
arm that tried to bend it out of its natural position, shall we
say that it is the bough which broke our arm, or that our own
folly has brought us to grief?
—The Secret Doctrine, II, 305
22nd. If the action of one reacts on the lives of all, and this is
the true scientific idea, then it is only by all men becoming
brothers and all women sisters, and by all practising in their
daily lives true brotherhood and true sisterhood, that the real human solidarity, which lies at the root of the elevation of the race, can ever be
attained.
—The Key to Theosophy, 232
23rd.
From the remotest antiquity
mankind
as a whole have always
been convinced of the existence of a personal spiritual
entity Within the personal physical man. This inner entity was
more or less divine, according to its proximity to the crown—Chrestos.
The closer the union the more serene man’s destiny, the less
dangerous the external conditions.
—Isis Unveiled, II, 593
24th. No light that shines from Spirit can dispel the darkness of
the nether Soul, unless all selfish thought has fled therefrom, and that
the pilgrim saith: “I have renounced this passing frame; I have destroyed
the cause: the shadows cast can, as effects, no longer be.”
—The Voice of the Silence, 60
25th. The Mahatmas are the servants, not the arbiters of the
law of Karma.
—Raja-Yoga or Occultism, 5
26th. There is but one real man, enduring through the cycle
of life and immortal in essence, if not in form, and this
is Manas, the Mind-man or embodied Consciousness
—The Key
to Theosophy, 98
27th.
Prepare, and be forewarned in time.
If thou hast tried and failed, 0 dauntless fighter, yet lose not courage: fight
on, and to the charge return again and yet again.
—The Voice of the Silence,
68
28th. The ONE LIFE is closely related to the one law which
governs the World of Being—KARMA. Exoterically, this is simply and literally
“action,” or rather an “effect-producing cause.” Esoterically it is quite a
different thing in its far-fetching moral effects. It is the unerring LAW OF
RETRIBUTION.
—The Secret Doctrine, I, 634
29th. The secret doctrine teaches that man, if he wins immortality, will
remain forever the trinity that he is in life, and will continue so, throughout
all the spheres.
—Isis Unveiled, I, 328-9
30th. This earth, 0 ignorant Disciple, is but the dismal entrance leading
to the twilight that precedes the valley of true light—that light which no wind
can extinguish, that light which burns without a wick or fuel.
—The Voice of the Silence, 4-5
MAY
1st. Theosophy, in its abstract meaning, is Divine Wisdom, or the
aggregate of the knowledge and wisdom that underlie the Universe—the homogeneity
of eternal GOOD; and in its concrete sense it is the sum total of the same as
allotted to man by nature, on this earth,
and no more.
—The Key to Theosophy, 56
2nd. Half, if not two-thirds of our ailings and diseases are the fruit of
our imagination and fears. Destroy the latter and give another bent to the
former, and nature
will do the rest.
—Raja-Yoga or Occultism, 132
3rd. The seeds of Wisdom cannot sprout and grow in airless space. To live
and reap experience, the mind needs breadth and depth and points to draw it
towards the Diamond Soul. Seek not those points in Maya’s realm; but soar beyond
illusions, search the eternal and the changeless Sat, mistrusting fancy’s false
suggestions.
—The Voice of the Silence, 28
4th. 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 “ways of Providence.”
—The Secret Doctrine, I, 643
5th. As cycle succeeded cycle, and one nation after another came upon the
world’s stage to play its brief part in the majestic drama of human life, each
new people evolved from ancestral traditions its own religion, giving it a local
colour, and stamping it with its individual characteristics. While each of
these religions had its distinguishing traits, by which, were there no other
archaic vestiges, the physical and psychological status of its creators could be
estimated, all preserved a common likeness to one prototype. This parent cult
was none other than the primitive “wisdom-religion.”
—Isis Unveiled, II, 216
6th. Divine Wisdom being diffused throughout the infinite Universe, and
our impersonal HIGHER SELF being an integral part of it, the atmic
light of the latter can be centred only in that which though eternal is still
individualized—i.e., the noëtic Principle, the manifested God within each
rational being, or our Higher Manas at one with Buddhi.
—U.L.T.
Pamphlet No. 32, 5
7th. As the bee collects its honey from every flower, leaving the rest as
food for the earthly worms, so does our spiritual individuality, whether we call
it Sutratma or Ego. Collecting from every terrestrial personality, into which
Karma forces it to incarnate, the nectar alone of the spiritual qualities and
self-consciousness, it unites all these into one whole and emerges from its
chrysalis as the glorified Dhyan Chohan.
—The Key to Theosophy, 166
8th. To don Nirmanakaya’s humble robe is to forego eternal bliss for
Self, to help on man’s salvation. To reach Nirvana’s bliss, but to renounce it,
is the supreme, the final step—the highest on Renunciation’s Path.
—The Voice of the Silence, 36
9th. As the eye of the expert jeweller discerns under the rough and
uncouth oyster shell the pure immaculate pearl, enshrined within its bosom, his
hand dealing with the former but to get at its contents, so the eye of the
true philosopher reads between the lines of the Purãnas the sublime Vedic
truths, and corrects the form with the help of the Vedantic wisdom. Our
Orientalists, however, never perceive the pearl under the thick coating of the
shell, and—act accordingly.
—The Secret Doctrine, II, 528
10th. The Ethics of Theosophy are even more necessary to mankind than the
scientific aspects of the psychic facts of nature and man. —Five Messages,
12
11th. Have patience, Candidate, as one who fears no failure, courts no
success. Fix thy Soul’s gaze upon the star whose ray thou art, the flaming star
that shines within the lightless depths of ever-being, the boundless fields of
the Unknown.
—The Voice of the Silence, 34
12th. 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.
—The Key to Theosophy, 227
13th.
Like signal-fires of the olden
times, which, lighted and extinguished by turns upon one hill-top after another,
conveyed intelligence along a whole stretch of country, so we see a long, line of
“wise” men from the beginning of history down to our own times communicating
the word of wisdom to their direct successors.
—Isis Unveiled, II, 571
14th. Theosophy is not a Religion. . . but RELIGION itself, the
one bond of unity, which is so universal and all-embracing that no man, as no
speck—from gods and mortals down to animals, the blade of grass and atom—can be
outside of its light. Therefore, any organization or body of that name must
necessarily be a UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD.
—U.L.T. Pamphlet No. 1, 5
15th. The Lamp burns bright when wick and oil are clean. To make them
clean a cleaner is required. The flame feels not the process of the cleaning.
“The branches of a tree are shaken by the wind; the trunk remains unmoved.”
—The Voice of the Silence, 31-2
16th. Physical forces and natural affinities of atoms may be sufficient
as factors to transform a plant into an
animal; but it requires more than a mere interplay between certain material
aggregates and their environment, to call to life a fully conscious man.
—The Secret Doctrine, II, 348
17th. Occultists. . . affirm that consciousness exists after death, and
that then only the real consciousness and freedom of the Ego commences, when it
is no longer impeded by terrestrial matter.
—Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge, 29
18th. Belief in Karma is the highest reason for reconcilement to one’s
lot in this life, and the very strongest incentive towards effort to better the
succeeding re-birth. Both of these, indeed, would be destroyed if we supposed
that our lot was the result of anything but strict Law, or that destiny
was in any other hands than our own.
—The Key to Theosophy, 213
19th. The selfish devotee lives to no purpose. The man who does not go
through his appointed work in life— has lived in vain.
—The Voice of the
Silence, 38
20th. A thorough familiarity with the occult faculties of everything
existing in nature, visible as well as invisible; their mutual relations,
attractions, and repulsions; the cause of these, traced to the spiritual
principle which pervades and animates all things; the ability to furnish the
best conditions for this principle to manifest itself, in other words a profound
and exhaustive knowledge of natural law—this was and is the
basis of magic.
—Isis Unveiled, 1, 244
21st. The boundless and infinite UNITY remained with every nation
a virgin forbidden soil, untrodden by man’s thought, untouched by fruitless
speculation. The only reference made to it was the brief conception of its
diastolic and systolic property, of its periodical epansion or dilatation, and
contraction.
—The Secret Doctrine, II, 42-3
22nd. Every Theosophist.. . is bound to do his utmost to help on, by all
the means in his power, every wise and well-considered social effort which has
for its object the amelioration of the condition of the poor.
—The Key to Theosophy, 233
23rd.
He who makes of pride and
self-regard bond- maidens to devotion; .. . he who, cleaving to existence, still
lays his patience and submission to the Law, as a sweet flower at the feet of Shakya-Thubpa, becomes a Srotapatti in this birth. The Siddhis of perfection may
loom far, far away; but the first step is taken, the stream is entered, and he
may gain the eye-sight of the mountain eagle, the hearing of the timid doe.
—The Voice of the Silence, 40-41
24th. Between the psychic and the noëtic, between the
Personality and the Individuality, there exists the same abyss as
between a “Jack the ‘Ripper,” and a holy Buddha.
—Raja-Yoga or Occultism,
54
25th. A man’s idea of God, is that image of blinding light that he sees
reflected in the concave mirror of his own soul, and yet this is not, in very
truth, God, but only His reflection. His glory is there, but, it is the light of
his own Spirit, that the man sees, and it is all he can bear to look upon.
The clearer the mirror, the brighter will be the divine image.
—Isis Unveiled,
I, xviii
26th.
Kill out desire; but if thou
killest it, take heed lest from the dead it should again arise. Kill love of
life; but if thou slayest Tanha, let this not be for thirst of life eternal, but
to replace the fleeting by the ever lasting
—The Voice of the Silence, 15
27th. It is . . . a universal tradition that mankind has evolved
gradually into its present shape from an almost transparent condition of
texture, and neither by miracle nor by sexual intercourse. Moreover, this is in
full accord with the ancient philosophies; from those of Egypt and India with
their Divine Dynasties down to that of Plato.
—The Secret Doctrine, II,
136
28th. As no cause remains without its due effect from greatest to least,
from a cosmic disturbance down to the movement of your hand, and as like
produces like, Karma is that unseen and unknown law which adjusts
wisely, intelligently and equitably each effect to its cause, tracing the
latter back to its producer. Though itself unknowable, its action is
perceivable.
—The Key to Theosophy, 199
29th.
When to the Permanent is sacrificed
the Mutable, the prize is thine: the drop returneth whence it came. The Open
PATH leads to the changeless change—Nirvana, the glorious state of
Absoluteness, the Bliss past human thought.
—The Voice of the Silence,
44-5
30th. Great intellect and too much knowledge are a two-edged weapon in
life, and instruments for evil as well as for good. When combined with
Selfishness, they will make of the whole of Humanity a footstool for the
elevation of him who possesses them, and a means for the attainment of his
objects; while, applied to altruistic humanitarian purposes, they may become the
means of the salvation of many.
—The Secret Doctrine, II, 163
31st. “Teach to eschew all causes; the ripple of effect, as the great
tidal wave, thou shalt let run its course.”
—The Voice of the Silence, 45
JUNE
1st. The universe is the combination of a thousand elements, and yet the
expression of a single spirit—a chaos to the sense, a cosmos to the reason.
—Isis Unveiled, I, xvi
2nd. Every atom and speck of matter, not of substance only, is
imperishable in its essence, but not in its individual consciousness.
Immortality is but one’s unbroken consciousness; and the personal
consciousness can hardly last longer than the personality itself.
—The Key to Theosophy, 107
3rd. Before the soul can hear, the image (man) has to become as deaf to
roarings as to whispers, to cries of bellowing elephants as to the silvery
buzzing of the golden fire-fly.
—The Voice of the Silence, 2
4th. In sober truth, vice and wickedness are an abnormal, unnatural
manifestation, at this period of our human evolution—at least they ought to
be so. The fact that mankind was never more selfish and vicious than it is now,
civilized nations having succeeded in
making of the first an ethical characteristic, of the second an art, is an
additional proof of the exceptional nature of the phenomenon.
—The Secret
Doctrine, II, 110
5th. The idea of Universal Life composed of individual atomic lives is
one of the oldest teachings of esoteric philosophy, and the very modern
hypothesis of modern Science, that of crystalline life, is the first ray
from the ancient luminary of knowledge that has reached our scholars.
—U.L.T.
Pamphlet No. 20, 5
6th. The Dharma of the “Eye” is the embodiment of the external, and the
non-existing. The Dharma of the “Heart” is the embodiment of Bodhi, the
Permanent and Everlasting.
—The Voice of the Silence, 31
7th. Occult truth cannot be absorbed by a mind that is filled with
preconception, prejudice or suspicion. It is something to be perceived by the
intuition rather than by the reason; being by nature spiritual, not material.
—Raja-Yoga or Occultism, 43
8th. The duty of a Theosophist to himself [is] to control and conquer,
through the Higher the lower self. To purify himself
inwardly and morally; to fear no one, and nought, save the tribunal of his own
conscience.
—The Key to Theosophy, 238
9th. Shalt thou abstain from action? Not so shall gain thy soul her
freedom. To reach Nirvana one must reach Self-Knowledge, and Self-Knowledge is
of loving deeds the child.
—The Voice of the Silence, 33-4
10th. Fairy tales do not exclusively belong to nurseries; all mankind—except
those few who in all ages have comprehended their hidden meaning and tried to
open the eyes of the superstitious—have listened to such tales in one shape or
the other and, after transforming them into sacred symbols, called the product RELIGION!
—Isis Unveiled, II, 406
11th. No Entity, whether angelic or human, can reach the state of
Nirvana, or of absolute purity, except through eons of suffering and the
knowledge of EVIL as well as of good, as otherwise the latter remains
in comprehensible
—The Secret Doctrine, II, 81
12th.
If thou art told that to become
Arhan thou hast to cease to love all beings—tell them they lie.
—The Voice of the Silence, 30
13th. We describe Karma as that Law of re-adjustment which ever tends to
restore disturbed equilibrium in the physical, and broken harmony in the moral
world. Karma does not act in this or that particular way always; but
it always does act so as to restore Harmony and preserve the balance of
equilibrium, in virtue of which the Universe exists.
—The Key to Theosophy,
203
14th. He who teaches Theosophy preaches the gospel of good-will; and the
converse of this is true also,—he who preaches the gospel of good-will, teaches
Theosophy.
—Five Messages, 7
15th. In these days of so-called progress and civilization when the light
of knowledge claims to have replaced almost everywhere the darkness
of ignorance, how many more volunteers do we see added to the army of Ahura
Mazda, the Principle of Good and Divine Light? Alas, the recruits of Angra
Mainyu, the
Mazdean Satan, outnumber these, daily more and more.
—U.L.T. Pamphlet No. 7, 8
16th. Step out from sunlight into shade, to make more
- room for others.
—The Voice of the Silence, 34-5
17th. In every Cosmogony, behind and higher than the creative
deity, there is a superior deity, a planner, an Architect, of whom the
Creator is but the executive agent. And still higher, over and around,
within and without, there is the UNKNOWABLE and the unknown,
the Source and Cause of all these Emanations.
—The Secret Doctrine, II, 43
18th. Our philosophy teaches us that, as there are seven fundamental
forces in nature, and seven planes of being, so there are seven states of
consciousness in which man can live, think, remember and have his
being.
—The Key to Theosophy, 88
19th. We believe in no Magic which transcends the scope and capacity of the
human mind, nor in “miracle,” whether divine or diabolical, if such imply a
transgression of the laws of nature instituted from all eternity.
—Isis Unveiled, I, v
20th. He, who becomes Pratyeka-Buddha makes his obeisance but to his
Self. The Bodhisattva who has won the battle, who holds the prize within his
palm, yet says in his divine compassion: “For others’ sake this great reward I
yield”—accomplishes the greater Renunciation.
—The Voice of the Silence, 47
21st. “The events of humanity do run co-ordinately with the number
forms,” since the single units of that humanity proceed one and all from the
same source— the central and its shadow, the visible SUN.
For the equinoxes and solstices, the periods and various phases of the Solar
course, astronomically and numerically expressed, are only the concrete symbols
of the eternally living verity, though they do seem abstract ideas to
uninitiated mortals.
—The Secret Doctrine, I, 639
22nd. Modern science.. . labours under disabilities with respect to the
investigation of the Occult quite as embarrassing as those of Religion; for,
while Religion
cannot grasp the idea of natural law as applied to the supersensuous Universe,
Science does not allow the existence of any supersensuous universe at all to
which the reign of law could be extended; nor can it conceive the possibility of
any other state of consciousness than our present terrestrial one.
—Raja-Yoga
or Occultism, 48
23rd. The recognition of pure Theosophy—the philosophy of the rational
explanation of things and not the tenets—is of the most vital importance in the
Society, inasmuch as it alone can furnish the beacon- light needed to guide
humanity on its true path.
—Five Messages, 5
24th. Thou shalt not separate thy being from BEING and the rest,
but merge the Ocean in the drop, the drop within the Ocean. —The Voice of the
Silence, 54
25th. It is from this WISDOM-RELIGION that all the
various individual “Religions”. . . have sprung, forming
in their turn offshoots and branches, and also all the minor creeds, based upon and always originated through
some personal experience in psychology. Every such
religion, or religious offshoot, be it considered orthodox or heretical, wise or
foolish, started originally as a clear and unadulterated stream from the
Mother-Source.
—U.L.T. Pamphlet No. 1, 9
26th.
Night rests humanity and restores
the equilibrium cosmic nature.
from the day’s activity, of human as well as of
—Isis Unveiled, I, xxvi
27th. The Law of Retribution. . . whether Conscious or Unconscious—Predestines
nothing and no one. It exists from and in Eternity, truly, for it is ETERNITY
itself; and as such, since no act can be co-equal with eternity, it cannot be
said to act, for it is ACTION itself.
—The Secret Doctrine, II, 304-5
28th. When to the World’s turmoil thy budding Soul lends ear; when to the
roaring voice of the Great Illusion thy Soul responds; when frightened at the
sight of the hot tears of pain; when deafened by the cries of distress, thy Soul
withdraws like the shy turtle within the carapace of SELFHOOD, learn,
O
Disciple, of her Silent “God” thy Soul is an unworthy shrine.
—The Voice of the Silence, 3-4
29th.
The Spirit (or Buddhi) is
the centrifugal and the soul (Manas) the centripetal spiritual energy;
and to produce one result they have to be in perfect union and harmony. Break or
damage the centripetal motion of the earthly soul tending toward the centre
which attracts it; arrest its progress by clogging it with a heavier weight of
matter than it can bear, or than is fit for the Devachanic state, and the
harmony of the whole will be destroyed.
—The Key to Theosophy, 187
30th. If, out of the material portion of the ether, by virtue of the
inherent restlessness of its particles, the forms of worlds and their species of
plants and animals can be evolved, why, out of the spiritual part of the ether,
should not successive races of beings, from the stage of monad to that of man,
be developed; each lower form unfolding a higher one until the work of evolution
is completed on our earth, in the production of immortal man?
—Isis Unveiled,
I, 340
JULY
1st. Withhold thy mind from all external objects, all external sights.
Withhold internal images, lest on thy soul-light a dark shadow they should cast.
—The Voice of the Silence, 20
2nd. This “Mind” is manas, or rather its lower reflection, which
whenever it disconnects itself, for the time being, with kama, becomes
the guide of the highest mental faculties, and is the organ of the free-will in
physical man.
—Raja-Yoga or Occultism, 59
3rd. Tacitly admitting the All-Presence of the boundless Circle and
making of it the universal Postulate upon which the whole of the manifested
universe is based, the Sage keeps a reverential silence concerning that upon
which no mortal men should dare to speculate.
—The Secret Doctrine, II, 589
4th. Once grasp the idea that universal causation is not merely present,
but past, present and future, and every action on our present plane falls
naturally and easily into its true place, and is seen in its true relation to
ourselves and to others.
—The Key to Theosophy, 234
5th.
Kill in thyself all memory of past
experiences. Look not behind or thou art lost.
—The Voice of the Silence, 18
6th. Occultism, unlike modern Science, maintains that every atom of
matter, when once differentiated, becomes endowed with its own kind of
Consciousness. Every cell in the human body (as in every animal) is
endowed with its own peculiar discrimination, instinct, and, speaking
relatively, with intelligence.
—Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge, 25
7th. Man-spirit proves God-spirit, as the one drop of water proves a source
from which it must have come.
—Isis Unveiled, I, vi
8th. We live in an atmosphere of gloom and despair, but this is because
our eyes are downcast and rivetted to the earth, with all its physical and
grossly material manifestations. If, instead of that, man proceeding on his
life-journey looked—not heavenward, which is but a figure of speech—but
within himself and centred his point of observation on the inner man,
he would soon
escape from the coils of the great serpent of illusion. From the cradle to the
grave, his life would then become supportable and worth living, even in its
worst phases.
—U.L.T. Pamphlet No. 26, 7
9th. Karma-Nemesis is no more than the (spiritual) dynamical effect of
causes produced and forces awakened into activity by our own actions.
—The Secret Doctrine, I, 644
10th. The wheel of the Good Law moves swiftly on. It grinds by night and
day. The worthless husks it drives from out the golden grain, the refuse from
the flour. The hand of Karma guides the wheel; the revolutions mark the beatings
of the karmic heart.
—The Voice of the Silence, 30
11th. The function of Theosophists is to open mens hearts and
understandings to charity, justice, and generosity, attributes which belong
specifically to the human kingdom and are natural to man when he has developed
the qualities of a human being. Theosophy teaches the animal-man to be a
human-man; and when people have learned to think and feel as truly human beings
should
feel and think, they will act humanely, and works of charity, justice, and
generosity will be done spontaneously by all.
—Five Messages, 9
12th. To get convinced of the fact of re-incarnation and past lives, one
must put oneself in rapport with one’s real permanent Ego, not one’s
evanescent memory.
—The Key to Theosophy, 126
13th. Our Ego, that which lives and thinks and feels independently
of us in our mortal casket, does more than believe. It knows that there
exists a God in nature, for the sole and invincible Artificer of all lives in us
as we live in Him. No dogmatic faith or exact science is able to uproot that
intuitional feeling inherent in man, when he has once fully realized it in
himself.
—Isis Unveiled, I, 36
14th. Think not that breaking bone, that rending flesh and muscle, unites
thee to thy “silent Self.” Think not that when the sins of thy gross form are
conquered,
O Victim of thy Shadows, thy duty is accomplished by nature and by man.
—The
Voice of the Silence, 32-3
15th.
As the whole philosophy
of the problem of evil hangs upon the correct comprehension of the constitution
of the inner being of nature and man, of the divine within the
animal, and hence also the correctness of the whole system as given in these
pages, with regard to the crown piece of evolution—MAN—we
cannot take sufficient precautions against theological subterfuges.
—The Secret. Doctrine, II, 476
16th. The chief point is, to uproot that most fertile source of all crime
and immorality—the belief that it is possible for them to escape the
consequences of their own actions. Once teach them that greatest of all laws,
Karma and Reincarnation, and besides feeling in themselves the true
dignity of human nature, they will turn from evil and eschew it as they would a
physical danger.
—The Key to Theosophy, 245-6
17th. As the sacred River’s roaring voice whereby all Nature-sounds are
echoed back, so must the heart of him “who in the stream would enter,” thrill in
response to every sigh and thought of all that lives and breathes.
—The Voice of the Silence, 55-6
18th.
Let us call every new
life on earth of the same Ego a night on the stage of a
theatre. One night the actor, or “Ego,” appears as “Macbeth,” the next as
“Shylock,” the third as “Romeo,” the fourth as “Hamlet” or “King Lear,” and so
on, until he has run through the whole cycle of incarnations. The Ego begins his
life-pilgrimage as a sprite, an “Ariel,” or a “Puck” he plays the part of a
super, is a soldier: a servant, one of the chorus; rises then to “speaking
parts,” plays leading roles, interspersed with insignificant parts, till
he finally retires from the stage as “Prospero,” the magician.
—The Key to Theosophy, 34-5
19th. The function of the cerebrum is to polish, perfect, or co-ordinate
ideas, whereas that of the cerebellum produces conscious desires, and so on.
—Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge, 34
20th. The ancient philosophy affirmed that it is in consequence of the
manifestation of that Will—termed by Plato the Divine Idea—that
everything visible and invisible sprung into existence. As that Intelligent
Idea. which, by directing its sole will-power toward a centre of localized
forces called objective forms into being so
can man, the microcosm of the great Macrocosm, do the same in proportion with
the development of his
will-power.
—Isis Unveiled, I, 61-2
21st. Strive with thy thoughts unclean before they overpower thee. Use
them as they will thee, for if thou sparest them and they take root and grow,
know well, these thoughts will overpower and kill thee.
—The Voice of the Silence, 13
22nd. We believe in a Universal Divine Principle, the root of ALL, from
which all proceeds, and within which all shall be absorbed at the end of the
great cycle of Being.
—The Key to Theosophy, 62
23rd. The astral through Kama (desire) is ever drawing Manas down into the
sphere of material passions and desires. But if the better man or
Manas tries to escape the fatal attraction and turns its aspirations to
Atma—Spirit—then Buddhi. . . conquers and carries Manas with it to the realm
of eternal Spirit.
—The Secret Doctrine, 1, 244
24th.
It is not by studying Occultism
for selfish ends, for the gratification of one’s personal ambition, pride, or
vanity, that one can ever reach the true goal: that of helping suffering
mankind.
—The Key to Theosophy, 24
25th. Educate! Educate!! The children are our salvation. Just as the
student of occult nature can imbue the new atoms of his body which momentarily
replace the old ones, with less vicious tendencies, and thus regenerate himself
by moral Alchemy and attain the “Elixir of Life,” so can a nation work its own
regeneration by educating the new atoms of its national body its children.
—U.L.T. Pamphlet No. 35, Title Page
26th. ALTRUISM. . . is the keynote of Theosophy and the cure for
all ills; this it is which the real Founders of the Theosophical Movement
promote as its first object —UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD.
—Five Messages, 15
27th. Pity and forbearance, charity and long-suffering, ought to be
always there to prompt us to excuse our sinning brethren, and to pass the
gentlest sentence possible upon those who err. A Theosophist ought never to
forget what is due to the shortcomings and infirmities of human nature.
—The
Key to Theosophy, 248
28th. There is but one MAGNET in the universe, and from it proceeds
the magnetization of everything existing. This magnet is of course what the
kabalists term the central Spiritual Sun, or God .
—Isis Unveiled, I,
208-9
29th. That which is the abyss of nothingness to the physicist, who knows
only the world of visible causes and effects, is the boundless Space of the
Divine Plenum to the Occultist.
—The Secret Doctrine, I. 148
30th. If thou would’st reap sweet peace and rest, Disciple, sow with the
seeds of merit the fields of future harvests. Accept the woes of birth.
—The Voice of the Silence, 34
31st. Polarity is universal, but the polariser lies in our own
consciousness. In proportion as our consciousness is elevated towards absolute
truth, so do we men assimilate it more or less absolutely.
—U.L.T. Pamphlet No. 17,
2
AUGUST
1st. A philosophy so profound, a moral code so ennobling, and practical
results so conclusive and so uniformly demonstrable is not the growth of a
generation, or even a single epoch. Fact must have been piled upon fact,
deduction upon deduction, science have begotten science, and myriads of the
brightest human intellects have reflected upon the laws of nature, before this
ancient doctrine had taken concrete shape.
—Isis Unveiled, II, 99
2nd. Point out the “Way”—however dimly, and lost among the host—as does
the evening star to those who tread their path in darkness.
—The Voice of the Silence, 39
3rd. Theosophy is indeed the life, the indwelling spirit which makes
every true reform a vital reality, for Theosophy is Universal Brotherhood, the
very foundation as well as the keystone of all movements toward the amelioration
of our condition.
—Five Messages, 26
4th. There is no such thing as either “dead” or “blind” matter, as there
is no “Blind” or “Unconscious” Law.
These find no place among the conceptions of Occult philosophy.
—The Secret
Doctrine, I, 274
5th. We should aim at creating free men and women, free
intellectually, free morally, unprejudiced in all respects, and above all
things, unselfish. And we believe that much if not all of this could be
obtained by proper and truly theosophical education.
—The Key to Theosophy, 268
6th. Meditation, abstinence in all, the observation of moral duties,
gentle thoughts, good deeds and kind words, as good will to all and entire
oblivion of Self, are the most efficacious means of obtaining knowledge and
preparing for the, reception of higher wisdom.
—Raja- Yoga or Occultism, 21-2
7th. Follow the wheel of life; follow the wheel of duty to race and kin,
to friend and foe, and close thy mind to pleasures as to pain. Exhaust the law
of Karmic retribution. Gain Siddhis for thy future birth.
—The Voice of the Silence, 39
8th. The trinity of nature is the lock of magic, the trinity of man the key
that fits it.
—Isis Unveiled, II, 635
9th.
Esoteric philosophy reconciles all
religions, strips every one of its outward, human garments, and shows the root
of each to be identical with that of every other great religion. It proves the
necessity of an absolute Divine Principle in nature. It denies Deity no more
than it does the Sun.
—The Secret Doctrine, I, xx
10th. Pure divine love is not merely the blossom of a human heart, but
has its roots in eternity. Spiritual holy love is immortal, and Karma brings
sooner or later all those who loved each other with such a spiritual affection to
incarnate once more in the same family
group.
—The Key to Theosophy, 148
11th. Compassion is no attribute. It is the Law of Laws—eternal Harmony,
Alaya’s SELF; a shoreless universal essence, the light of everlasting
right, and fitness of all things, the law of Love eternal.
—The Voice of the Silence, 75-6
12th. “Be Theosophists, work for Theosophy!” Theosophy first, and
Theosophy last; for its practical realization alone can save the Western
world from that
selfish and unbrotherly feeling that now divides race from race, one nation from
the other; and from that hatred of class and social considerations that are the
curse and disgrace of so-called Christian peoples.
—Five Messages, 31
13th. A flower blossoms; then withers and dies. It
leaves a fragrance behind, which, long after its delicate petals are but a
little dust, still lingers in the air. Our material sense may not be cognizant
of it, but it nevertheless exists. Let a note be struck on an instrument, and
the faintest sound produces an eternal echo. A disturbance is created on the
invisible waves of the shoreless ocean of space, and the vibration is never
wholly lost. Its energy being once carried from the world of matter into the
immaterial world will live for ever. And man, we are asked to believe, man, the
living, thinking, reasoning entity, the indwelling deity of our nature’s
crowning masterpiece, will evacuate his casket and be no more! Would the
principle of continuity which exists even for the so-called inorganic
matter, for a floating atom, be denied to the spirit, whose attributes are consciousness, memory, mind, LOVE!
—Isis Unveiled, I, 114
14th.
Universal Unity and Causation;
Human Solidarity; the Law of Karma; Reincarnation. These are the four links of
the golden chain which should bind humanity into one family, one universal
Brotherhood.
—The Key to Theosophy, 231
15th. Heaven’s dew-drop glittering in the morn’s first sunbeam within the
bosom of the lotus, when dropped on earth becomes a piece of clay; behold, the
pearl is now a speck of mire.
—The Voice of the Silence, 12
16th. [The] unity of everything in the universe implies and justifies our
belief in the existence of a knowledge at once scientific, philosophical and
religious, showing the necessity and actuality of the connection of man and all
things in the universe with each other: which knowledge, therefore, becomes
essentially RELIGION, and must be called in its integrity and universality by
the distinctive name of WISDOM-RELIGION.
—U.L.T. Pamphlet No. 1, 9
17th. just as milliards of bright sparks dance on the waters of an ocean
above which one and the same moon is
shining, so our evanescent personalities—the illusive envelopes of the immortal
MONAD-EGO—twinkle and dance on the waves of Maya.
—The Secret Doctrine, I, 237
18th. MOTION is eternal per se, and in the manifested
Kosmos it is the Alpha and Omega of that which is called electricity, galvanism,
magnetism, sensation— moral and physical—thought, and even life, on this plane.
—Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge, 115
19th. Know that the stream of superhuman knowledge and the Deva-Wisdom
thou hast won, must, from thyself, the channel of Alaya, be poured forth into
another bed.
—The Voice of the Silence, 73
20th. It is held as a truth among Theosophists that the interdependence
of Humanity is the cause of what is called Distributive Karma, and it is this
law which affords the solution to the great question of collective suffering and
its relief.
—The Key to Theosophy, 200
21st. The origin of all religions—Judo-Christianity included—is to be
found in a few primeval truths, not
one of which can be explained apart from all the others, as each is a complement
of the rest in some one detail. And they are all, more or less, broken rays of
the same Sun of truth, and their beginnings have to be sought in the archaic
records of the Wisdom-religion.
—The Esoteric Character of the Gospels, 47
22nd. Nature is as dependent
as a human being upon conditions before she can work, and her mighty breathing,
so to say, can be as easily interfered with, impeded, and arrested, and the
correlation of her forces destroyed in a given spot, as though she were a man.
Not only climate, but also occult influences daily felt not only modify the
physio-psychological nature of man, but even alter the constitution of so-called
inorganic matter in a degree not fairly realized by European science.
—Isis Unveiled, I, 211
23rd. Civilization has ever developed the
physical and the intellectual at the cost of the psychic and spiritual. The
command and the guidance over his own psychic nature, which foolish men now
associate with the supernatural, were with early Humanity innate and congenital,
and came to man as naturally as walking and
thinking.
—The Secret Doctrine, II, 319
24th.
Let thy Soul lend its ear to every
cry of pain like as the lotus bares its heart to drink the morning sun.
—The
Voice of the Silence, 14
25th. As it [Theosophy] has existed eternally throughout the endless
cycles upon cycles of the Past, so it will ever exist throughout the infinitudes
of the Future, because Theosophy is synonymous with EVERLASTING TRUTH.
—The
Key to Theosophy, 302
26th. Man accumulates knowledge, invents religions and philosophies, but
himself remains still the same. In his ceaseless chase after wealth and honours
and the will-o’-the-wisps of novelty, enjoyment and ambition, he is ever moved
by one chief motor—vain selfishness.
—U.L.T. Pamphlet No. 7, 8
27th. To offer oneself as a candidate for Chelaship is easy enough, to
develop into an Adept the most difficult task any man could possibly undertake.
There are scores of “natural-born” poets, mathematicians, mechanics, statesmen,
etc., but a natural-born Adept is
something practically impossible.
—Raja- Yoga or Occultism, 1
28th. Be like the Ocean which receives all streams and rivers. The
Ocean’s mighty calm remains unmoved; it feels them not.
—The Voice of the
Silence, 41
29th. To the spiritual eagle eye of the seer and the prophet of every
race, Ariadne’s thread stretches beyond that “historic period” without break or
flaw, surely and steadily into the very night of time; and the hand which holds
it is too mighty to drop it, or even let it
break.
—The Secret Doctrine, II, 67
30th. Matter is nothing more than the most remote effect of the emanative
energy of the Deity.
—Isis Unveiled, II, 35
31st. As the lingering sunbeam, that on the top of some tall mountain
shines, is followed by black night when out it fades, so is heart-light. When
out it goes, a dark and threatening shade will fall from thine own heart upon
the path, and root thy feet in terror to the spot.
—The Voice of the Silence, 60
SEPTEMBER
1st. Duty is that which is due to Humanity, to our fellow-men,
neighbours, family, and especially that which we owe to all those who are poorer
and more helpless than we are ourselves. This is a debt which if left unpaid
during life, leaves us spiritually insolvent and moral bankrupts in our next
incarnation. Theosophy is the quintessence of duty.
—The Key to Theosophy, 227
2nd. Each man should strive to be a centre of work in himself. When his
inner development has reached a certain point, he will naturally draw those with
whom he is in contact under the same influence; a nucleus will be formed, round
which other people will gather, forming a centre from which information and
spiritual influence radiate, and towards which higher influences
are directed.
—Five Messages, 4
3rd. Evolution is an eternal cycle of becoming .. . and nature never
leaves an atom unused. Moreover, from the beginning of the Round, all in Nature
tends to become Man. All the impulses of the dual, centripetal
and centrifugal Force are directed towards one point—
MAN.
—The Secret Doctrine, II, 170
4th. Bear love to men as though they were thy brother- pupils,
disciples of one Teacher, the sons of one sweet
mother.
—The Voice of the Silence, 54
5th. Occultism tells us that every atom, like the monad of Leibnitz, is a
little universe in itself; and that every organ and cell in the human body is
endowed with a brain of its own, with memory, therefore, experience and
discriminative powers.
—U.L.T. Pamphlet No. 20, 5
6th. The individual cannot separate himself from the race, nor the race
from the individual. The law of Karma applies equally to all, although all are
not equally developed. In helping on the development of others, the Theosophist
believes that he is not only helping them to fulfill their Karma, but that he is
also, in the strictest sense, fulfilling his own.
—The Key to Theosophy, 234
7th. KSHANTI, patience sweet, that nought can ruffle.
—The Voice of the Silence, 52
8th. Human nature is
like universal nature in its
abhorrence of a vacuum.
It feels an intuitional yearning for a Supreme Power. Without a God, the cosmos
would seem to it but like a soulless corpse. Being forbidden to search for Him
where alone His traces would be found, man filled the aching void with the
personal God whom his spiritual teachers built up for him from the crumbling
ruins of heathen myths and hoary philosophies of old.
—Isis Unveiled,
I, 36
9th. It is a strange law of Nature that, on this plane, the higher
(Spiritual) Nature should be, so to say, in bondage to the lower. Unless the Ego
takes refuge in the Atman, the ALL-SPIRIT, and merges entirely into the
essence thereof, the personal Ego may goad it to the bitter end. This cannot be
thoroughly understood unless the student makes himself familiar, with the
mystery of evolution, which proceeds on triple lines— spiritual, psychic and
physical.
—The Secret Doctrine, II, 109
10th. The whole human body is . . . a vast sounding board, in
which each cell bears a long record of impressions connected with its parent
organ, and each cell has a
memory and a consciousness of its kind, or call it
instinct if you will.
—Raja-Yoga or Occultism, 70
11th. Have perseverance as one who doth for evermore endure. Thy
shadows live and vanish; that which in thee shall live for ever, that which in
thee knows, for it is knowledge, is not of fleeting life: it is
the man that was, that is, and will be, for whom the hour shall never strike.
—The Voice of the Silence, 34
12th. Psychic capacities held perfectly under control, checked and
directed by the Manasic principle, are valuable aids in development. But these
capacities running riot, controlling instead of controlled, using instead of
being used, lead the Student into the most dangerous delusions and the certainty
of moral destruction.
—Five Messages, 29
13th. The ever unknowable and incognizable Karana alone, the Causeless Cause of all causes, should have its
shrine and
altar on the holy and ever untrodden ground of our heart—invisible, intangible,
unmentioned, save through “the still small ‘voice” of our spiritual
consciousness. Those who worship before it, ought to do so
in the silence and the sanctified solitude of their Souls; making their spirit
the sole mediator between them and the Universal Spirit, their good
actions the only priests, and their sinful intentions the only visible and
objective sacrificial victims to the Presence.
—The Secret Doctrine, I, 280
14th. Self-doomed to live through future Kalpas, unthanked and
unperceived by men; wedged as a stone with countless other stones which form the
“Guardian Wall,” such is thy future if the seventh Gate thou passest. Built by
the hands of many Masters of Compassion, raised by their tortures, by their
blood cemented, it shields mankind, since man is man, protecting it from further
and far greater misery and sorrow.
—The Voice of the Silence, 74
15th. Karma in its effects is an unfailing redresser of human injustice, and
of all the failures of nature; a stern adjuster of wrongs; a retributive law
which rewards and punishes with equal impartiality. It is, in the strictest
sense, “no respecter of persons,” though, on the other hand, it can neither be
propitiated, nor turned aside by prayer.
—The Key to Theosophy, 196
16th.
True philosophy and divine truth
are convertible terms. A religion which dreads the light cannot be a religion
based on either truth or philosophy—hence, it
must be false.
—Isis Unveiled, II, 121
17th. Official science sees in motion simply a blind unreasoning force or
law; Occultism, tracing motion to its origin, identifies it with the Universal
Deity, and calls this eternal ceaseless motion—the “Great Breath.”
—U.L.T. Pamphlet No. 20, 10
18th. Life and electricity are one in our philosophy. They say life is
electricity, and if so, then the One Life is the essence and root of all the
electric and magnetic phenomena on this manifested plane.
—Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge, 87
19th. DANA, the Key of charity and love immortal.
—The Voice of the Silence, 52
20th. Selfishness, indifference, and brutality can never be the normal state
of the race—to believe so would be to despair of humanity—and that no
Theosophist
can do. Progress can be attained, and only attained, by the development of the
nobler qualities.
—The Key to Theosophy, 233
21st. Humanity is the child of cyclic Destiny, and not one of its Units
can escape its unconscious mission, or get rid of the burden of its
co-operative work with nature. Thus will mankind, race after race, perform its
appointed cycle-pilgrimage.
—The Secret Doctrine, II, 446
22nd. Learn, then, well the doctrines of Karma and Reincarnation, and
teach, practise, promulgate that system of life and thought which alone can save
the coming races. Do not work merely for the Theosophical Society, but through
it for Humanity.
—Five Messages, 26
23rd. Be humble, if thou would’st attain to Wisdom. Be humbler still,
when Wisdom thou hast mastered.
—The Voice of the Silence, 41
24th. We would that all who have a voice in the education of the masses
should first know and then teach that the safest guides to human happiness and enlightenment are those writings
which have descended to us from the remotest antiquity; and that nobler
spiritual aspirations and a higher average morality prevail in the countries
where the people take their precepts as the rule of their lives.
—Isis
Unveiled, II, 635
25th. A cup of cold water given in time to a thirsty wayfarer is a nobler
duty and more worth, than a dozen of dinners given away, out of season, to men
who can afford to pay for them.
—The Key to Theosophy, 239
26th. The whole issue of the quarrel between the profane and the esoteric
sciences depends upon the belief in, and demonstration of, the existence of an
astral body within the physical, the former independent of the latter.
—The Secret Doctrine, II, 149
27th. Nature gives up her innermost secrets and imparts true wisdom
only to him, who seeks truth for its own sake, and who craves for knowledge
in order to confer benefits on others, not on his own unimportant
personality.
—U.L.T. Pamphlet No. 32, 7
28th.
Before thou standest on the
threshold of the Path; before thou crossest the foremost Gate, thou hast to
merge the two into the One and sacrifice the personal to Self impersonal, and
thus destroy the “path” between the two—Antaskarana.
—The Voice of the Silence, 54-5
29th. To conquer, means ADEPTSHIP; to fall, an ignoble Martyrdom;
for to fall victim to lust, pride, avarice, vanity, selfishness, cowardice, or
any other of the lower propensities, is indeed ignoble, if measured by the
standard of true manhood.
—Raja-Yoga or Occultism, 6
30th. In every conceivable case [one must] himself be a centre of spiritual
action, and from him and his own daily individual life must radiate those higher
spiritual forces which alone can regenerate his fellow-men.
—The Key to Theosophy, 233-4
OCTOBER
1st. Everything in the Universe, throughout all its kingdoms, is
conscious: i.e., endowed with a consciousness of its own kind and on its
own plane of perception. We men must remember that because we do not
perceive any signs—which we can recognise—of consciousness, say, in stones, we
have no right to say that no consciousness exists there.
—The Secret Doctrine, I, 274
2nd. As the white ray of light is decomposed by the prism into the
various colours of the solar spectrum, so the beam of divine truth, in passing
through the three-sided prism of man’s nature, has been broken up into
vari-coloured fragments called RELIGIONS. And, as the rays of the
spectrum, by imperceptible shadings, merge into each other, so the great
theologies that have appeared at different degrees of divergence from the
original source, have been connected by minor schisms, schools, and off-shoots
from the one side or the other. Combined, their aggregate represents one eternal
truth; separate, they are but shades of human error and the signs of
imperfection.
—Isis Unveiled, II, 639
3rd.
The more thou dost advance, the
more thy feet pitfalls will meet. The path that leadeth on, is lighted by one
fire—the light of daring, burning in the heart. The more one dares, the more he
shall obtain. The more he fears, the more that light shall pale—and that alone
can guide.
—The Voice of the Silence, 59-60
4th. 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.
—The Key to Theosophy, 242
5th. On the day when Theosophy will have accomplished its most holy and
most important mission— namely to unite firmly a body of men of all nations in
brotherly love and bent on a pure altruistic work, not on a labour with selfish
motives—on that day only will Theosophy become higher than any nominal brother
hood of man.
—Five Messages, 5
6th. It is the motive, and the motive alone, which makes any
exercise of power become black, malignant, or white, beneficent Magic.
—Raja-Yoga
or Occultism, 18
7th.
There is one eternal Law in nature,
one that always tends to adjust contraries and to produce final harmony. It is
owing to this law of spiritual development superseding the physical and purely
intellectual, that mankind will become freed from its false gods, and find
itself finally—SELF-REDEEMED.
—The Secret Doctrine, II, 420
8th.
Give light and comfort to the
toiling pilgrim, and seek out him who knows still less than thou; who in his
wretched desolation sits starving for the bread
of Wisdom and the bread which feeds the shadow without a Teacher, hope or
consolation, and—let him hear the Law.
—The Voice of the Silence, 40
9th. A true Theosophist must put in practice the loftiest moral ideal,
must strive to realize his unity with the whole of humanity, and work
ceaselessly for
others.
—The Key to Theosophy, 25
10th. The ancient sages, ascending to the UNKNOWABLE, made their
starting-point from the first manifestation of the unseen, the unavoidable, and
from a strict logical reasoning, the absolutely necessary creative Being,
the Demiurgos of the universe. Evolution began with them from pure spirit, which
descending lower and lower down, assumed at last a visible and comprehensible
form, and became matter:
—Isis Unveiled, I, xxx-xxxi
11th. Truly, Christianity can never hope to be understood until every
trace of dogmatism is swept away from it, and the dead letter sacrificed to the
eternal Spirit of Truth, which is Horus, which is Crishna, which, is Buddha, as
much as it is the Gnostic Christos and the true Christ of Paul.
—The Esoteric Character of the Gospels, 28
12th. If Sun thou canst not be, then be the humble planet. Aye, if thou
art debarred from flaming like the noon-day Sun upon the snow-capped mount of
purity eternal, then choose, O Neophyte, a humbler course.
—The Voice of the Silence, 39
13th. Theosophy.. . if seriously studied, calls forth, by stimulating
one’s reasoning powers and awakening the inner in the animal man, every
hitherto dormant power
for good in us, and also the perception of the true and the real, as opposed to
the false and the unreal.
—U.L.T. Pamphlet No. 1, 7
14th. Intimately, or rather indissolubly, connected with Karma.. . is the
law of re-birth, or of the reincarnation of the same spiritual individuality in
a long, almost interminable, series of personalities. The latter are like the
various costumes and characters played by the same actor, with each of which
that actor identifies himself and is identified by the public, for the space of
a few hours.
—The Secret Doctrine, II, 306
15th. He who would profit by the wisdom of the universal mind, has to
reach it through the whole of Humanity without distinction of race,
complexion, religion or social status. It is altruism, not ego-ism
even in its most legal and noble conception, that can lead the unit to merge its
little Self in the Universal Selves.
—Raja-Yoga or Occultism, 36
16th. Magic is but a science, a profound knowledge of the Occult
forces in Nature, and of the laws governing the visible or the invisible world.
—Raja-Yoga or Occultism, 153 (Second Ed.)
17th.
To become a neophyte, one must be
ready to devote himself heart and soul to the study of mystic sciences.
Magic—most imperative of mistresses—brooks no rival. Unlike other sciences, a
theoretical knowledge of formulae without mental capacities or soul powers, is
utterly useless in magic. The spirit must hold in complete subjection the
combativeness of what is loosely termed educated reason, until facts have
vanquished cold human sophistry.
—Isis Unveiled, II, 636
18th. Popular folk-lore and traditions, however fanciful at times, when
sifted may lead to the discovery of long lost, but important, secrets of nature.
—The Key to Theosophy, 48
19th. Man is certainly no special creation, and he is the product
of Nature’s gradual perfective work, like any other living unit on this earth.
But this is only with regard to the human tabernacle. That which lives and
thinks in man and survives that frame, the masterpiece of evolution—is the
“Eternal Pilgrim,” the Protean differentiation in space and time of the One
Absolute “unknowable.” —The Secret Doctrine, II, 728
20th
Thou canst create this “day” thy
chances for thy “morrow.” In the “Great Journey,” causes sown each hour bear
each its harvest of effects, for rigid Justice rules the World. With mighty
sweep of never
erring action, it brings to mortals lives of weal or woe, the karmic progeny of
all our former thoughts and
deeds.
—The Voice of the Silence, 37
21st. If Theosophy prevailing in the struggle, its all- embracing
philosophy strikes deep root into the minds
and hearts of men, if its doctrines of Reincarnation and Karma, in other words,
of Hope and Responsibility, find a home in the lives of the new generations,
then, indeed, will dawn the day of joy and gladness for all who now suffer and
are outcast.
—U.L.T. Pamphlet No. 17, Foreword, ii
22nd. He who would be a true Theosophist must bring himself to live as
one.
—The Key to Theosophy, 52
23rd. To disbelieve that there exist in man, certain arcane powers, which,
by psychological study he can develop in himself to the highest degree, become
an
hierophant and then impart to others under the same conditions of earthly
discipline, is to cast an imputation of falsehood and lunacy upon a number of
the best purest, and most learned men of antiquity and of the
middle ages.
—Isis Unveiled, II, 11.3
24th. Help Nature and work on with her; and Nature will regard thee as
one of her creators and make obeisance.
—The Voice of the Silence, 15
25th. We hold that a good book which gives people food for thought, which
strengthens and clears their minds, and enables them to grasp truths which they
have dimly felt but could not formulate—we hold that such a book does a real,
substantial good.
—The Key to Theosophy, 246
26th. There was a spiritual, a psychic, an intellectual, and an animal
evolution, from the highest to the lowest, as well as a physical
development—from the simple and homogeneous, up to the more complex and
heterogeneous; though not quite on the lines traced for us by the modern
evolutionists. This double evolution in
two contrary directions, required various ages, of divers natures and degrees of
spirituality and intellectuality, to fabricate the being now known as man.
—The Secret Doctrine, II, 87
27th. The life of altruism is not so much a high ideal as a matter of
practice. Naturally, then, Theosophy finds a home in many hearts and minds, and
strikes a resounding harmony as soon as it reaches the ears of those who are
ready to listen. There, then, is part of your work: to lift high the torch of
Liberty of the Soul of Truth that all may see it and benefit by its
light.
—Five Messages, 12
28th. Arcane knowledge misapplied, is sorcery; beneficently used, true
magic or WISDOM.
—Isis Unveiled, II, 588
29th. When waxing stronger, thy Soul glides forth from her secure retreat; and
breaking loose from the protecting shrine, extends her silver thread and rushes
onward; when beholding her image on the waves of Space she whispers, “This is
I”—declare, O Disciple.
that thy Soul is caught in the webs of delusion.
—The Voice of the Silence, 4
30th. In the ancient Cosmogonies, the visible and the invisible worlds are
the double links of one and the same chain. As the invisible Logos, with
its seven hierarchies. . . form one power, the inner and the invisible; so, in
the world of Forms, the Sun and the seven chief Planets constitute the visible
and active potency; the latter “Hierarchy” being, so to speak, the, visible and
objective Logos of the invisible and. . . ever subjective angels.
—The Secret Doctrine, II, 23
31st. VIRAGA, indifference to pleasure and to pain, illusion conquered,
truth alone perceived.
—The Voice of the Silence, 52
NOVEMBER
1st. The Paths are two; the great Perfections three; six are the virtues
that transform the body into the
Tree of Knowledge.
—The Voice of the Silence, 26
2nd. The universe itself illustrates the actuality of perpetual motion;
and the atomic theory, which has proved such a balm to the exhausted minds of
our cosmic explorers, is based upon it. The telescope searching through space,
and the microscope probing the’ mysteries of the little world in a drop of
water, reveal the same law in operation.—Isis Unveiled, I, 502
3rd. The universal consciousness of the real Ego transcends a million-fold
the self-consciousness of the personal or false Ego.
—Transactions of the
Blavatsky Lodge, 74
4th. 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.
—The Key to Theosophy, 242
5th.
The Monad is a drop out of the
shoreless Ocean beyond, or, to be correct, within the plane of primeval
differentiation. It is divine in its higher and human in its lower
condition—the adjectives “higher” and “lower” being used for lack of better
words—and a monad it remains at all times, save in the Nirvanic state, under
whatever conditions, or whatever external forms.
—The Secret Doctrine, II, 186
6th. Strangle thy sins, and make them dumb for ever, before thou dost
lift one foot to mount the ladder.
—The Voice of the Silence, 17
7th. A few centuries more, and there will linger no sectarian beliefs in
either of the great religions of humanity. Brahmanism and Buddhism, Christianity
and Mahometanism will all disappear before the mighty
rush of facts.
—Isis Unveiled, I, 613
8th. When two minds are sympathetically related, and the instruments
through which they function are tuned to respond magnetically and electrically
to one another, there is nothing which will prevent the transmission of
thoughts from one to the other, at will.
—The Key to Theosophy, 289
9th. Real Theosophy is ALTRUISM, and we cannot repeat
it too often. It is brotherly love, mutual help, unswerving devotion to Truth.
If once men do but realise that in these alone can true happiness be found, and
never in wealth, possessions, or any selfish gratification, then the dark clouds
will roll away, and a new humanity will be born upon earth. Then, the GOLDEN
AGE will be there, indeed.
—U.L.T. Pamphlet No. 17, Foreword, ii
10th. Learn that no efforts, not the smallest—whether in right or wrong
direction—can vanish from the world of causes. E’en wasted smoke remains
not traceless.
—The Voice of the Silence, 37
11th. From centre to circumference, from the imperceptible vesicle
to the uttermost conceivable bounds of the Kosmos, those glorious thinkers, the
Occultists, trace cycle merging into cycle, containing and contained in
an endless series. The embryo evolving in its prenatal sphere, the
individual in his family, the family in
the state, the state in mankind, the Earth In our system, that system in its
central universe, the universe in the Kosmos, and the Kosmos in the or CAUSE—thus runs their philosophy of evolution.
—The Secret Doctrine, II, 189
12th. All things that ever were, that are, or that will be,
having their record upon the astral light, or tablet of the unseen universe, the
Initiated adept, by using the vision of his own spirit, can know all that has
been known or can be known.
—Isis Unveiled, II, 588
13th. A proper and sane system of education should produce the most
vigorous and liberal mind, strictly trained in logical and accurate thought, and
not in blind faith.
—The Key to Theosophy, 268
14th. Shun ignorance, and likewise shun Illusion. Avert thy face
from world deceptions: mistrust thy senses; they are false. But
within thy body—the shrine of thy sensations—seek in the
Impersonal for the “Eternal Man”; and having sought him out, look inward: thou art Buddha.
—The Voice of the Silence,
28-9
15th.
The Divine Mind is, and
must be before differentiation takes place. It is called the divine
Ideation, which is eternal in its Potentiality and
periodical in its Potency, when it becomes Mahat, Anima
Mundi or Universal Soul. But remember that, however you name it, each of these conceptions has its most metaphysical, most
material, and also intermediate aspects.
—Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge, 4
16th. Chemistry and physiology are the two great magicians of
the future, who are destined to open the eyes of mankind to the
great physical truths.
—The Secret Doctrine, I, 261
17th. Theosophia. . .Wisdom-religion, or “Divine Wisdom.” The
substratum and basis of all the world- religions and philosophies, taught
and practised by a few elect ever since man became a thinking being.
In its practical bearing, Theosophy is purely divine ethics.
—The Theosophical Glossary
18th. PRAJNA, the key to which makes of a man a God, creating him
a Bodhisattva, son of the Dhyanis.
—The Voice of the Silence, 53
19th. Theosophy seeks to
develop the human nature in man in addition to the animal, and at the
sacrifice of the superfluous animality which modem life and materialistic
teachings have developed to a degree which is abnormal for the human being at
this stage of his
progress.
—Five Messages, 6
20th. According to the kabalistic doctrine, the future exists in the astral
light in embryo, as the present existed in embryo in the past. While man is free
to act as he pleases, the manner in which he will act was foreknown from
all time; not on the ground of fatalism or destiny, but simply on the principle
of universal, unchangeable harmony; and, as it may be foreknown that, when a
musical note is struck, its vibrations will not, and cannot change into those of
another note.
—Isis Unveiled, I, 184
21st. 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.
—The Secret Doctrine, 1, 643-4
22nd. SHILA, the key of Harmony in word and act, the key that
counterbalances the cause and the effect, and leaves no further room for Karmic
action.
—The Voice of the Silence, 52
23rd. Every human organ and each cell in the latter has a key-board of
its own, like that of a piano, only that it registers and emits sensations
instead of sounds. Every key contains the potentiality of good or bad, of
producing harmony or disharmony. This depends on the impulse given and the
combinations produced; on the force of the touch of the artist at work, a
“doublefaced Unity,” indeed. —Raja-Yoga or Occultism, 68-9
24th.
Make hard thy Soul against the
snares of Self, deserve for it the name of “Diamond-Soul.”
—The Voice of the Silence, 66
25th. We say and maintain that SOUND. . . is a tremendous Occult
power; that it is a stupendous force, of
which the electricity generated by a million of Niagaras could never counteract
the smallest potentiality when directed with occult knowledge. Sound may
be produced of such a nature that the pyramid of Cheops would be raised in the
air, or that a dying man, nay, one at his last breath, would be revived and
filled with new energy and vigour.
—The Secret Doctrine, I, 555
26th. There never was, nor can there be more than one universal religion;
for there can be but one truth concerning God. Like an immense chain whose upper
end, the alpha, remains invisibly emanating from a Deity—in statu abscondito with every primitive theology—it encircles our globe
in every direction; it leaves not even the darkest corner unvisited, before the
other end, the omega, turns back on its way to be again received where it first
emanated. On this divine chain was strung the exoteric symbology of every
people.
—Isis Unveiled, I, 560
27th. Free will can only exist in a Man who has both mind and
consciousness, which act and make him perceive things both within and without
himself.
—Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge, 25
28th.
Theosophy is the most serious
movement of this age; and one, moreover, which threatens the very life of most
of the time-honoured humbugs, prejudices, and social evils of the day.
—The
Key to Theosophy, 269
29th. When once thou hast become like the fix’d star in highest heaven,
that bright celestial orb must shine from out the spatial depths for all—save
for itself; give light to all, but take from none.
—The Voice of the Silence, 73
30th. It is a law of occult dynamics that “a given amount of energy
expended on the spiritual or astral plane is productive of far greater results
than the same amount expended on the physical objective plane of
existence.”
—The Secret Doctrine, I, 644
DECEMBER
1st. MAGIC is spiritual WISDOM; nature, the material ally, pupil and
servant of the magician. One common vital principle pervades all things, and
this is controllable by the perfected human will.
—Isis Unveiled, II, 590
2nd. [Theosophy] will gradually leaven and permeate the great mass of
thinking and intelligent people with its large-minded and noble ideas of
Religion, Duty, and Philanthropy. Slowly but surely it will burst asunder the
iron fetters of creeds and dogmas, of social and caste prejudices; it will break
down racial and national antipathies and barriers, and will open the way to the
practical realisation of the Brotherhood of all men.
—The Key to Theosophy, 303
3rd. Silence thy thoughts and fix thy whole attention on thy Master, whom
yet thou dost not see, but whom thou feelest.
—The Voice of the Silence,
17
4th. Woe to those who live without suffering. Stagnation and death is the
future of all that vegetates without a change. And how can there be any change
for the better without proportionate suffering during the preceding stage? Is it
not those only who have learnt the deceptive value of earthly hopes and the
illusive allurements of eternal nature who are destined to solve the great
problems of life, pain, and death?
—The Secret Doctrine, II, 475
5th. When the real nature of Theosophy is understood, the prejudice
against it, now so unfortunately prevalent, will die out. Theosophists are of
necessity the friends of all movements in the world, whether intellectual or
simply practical, for the amelioration of the condition of mankind.
—Five
Messages, 8
6th. The “Higher Ego” cannot act directly on the body, as its
consciousness belongs to quite another plane and planes of ideation: the “lower”
Self does:
and its action and behaviour depend on its free will and choice as to
whether it will gravitate more towards its parent (“the Father in Heaven”) or
the “animal” which it informs, the man of flesh.
—Raja-Yoga or Occultism, 67
7th.
The PATH IS one, Disciple,
yet in the end, twofold. Marked are its stages by four and seven Portals. At one
end—bliss immediate, and at the other—bliss deferred. Both are of merit the
reward: the choice is thine.
—The Voice of the Silence, 44
8th. Theosophy.. . is the essence of all religion and of absolute truth, a
drop of which only underlies every creed.
—The Key to Theosophy, 58
9th. The Secret Doctrine is the common property of the countless millions
of men born under various climates, in times with which History refuses to deal,
and to which esoteric teachings assign dates incompatible with the theories of
Geology and Anthropology. The birth and evolution of the Sacred Science of the
Past are lost in the very night of Time.
—The Secret Doctrine, II, 794
10th. The intensity of our ardent aspirations changes prayer into the
“philosopher’s stone,” or that which transmutes lead into pure gold. The only
homogeneous essence, our "will prayer" becomes the active or creative
force, producing effects according to our desire.
—The Key to Theosophy, 68
11th. Maya is everywhere, and in every thing that has a beginning
and an end; therefore, every thing is an aspect of that which is
eternal, and in that sense, of course Maya itself is an aspect of SAT, or
that which is eternally present in the universe, whether during
Manvantara or Mahapralaya. Only remember that it has been said of even Nirvana
that it is only Maya when compared with the Absolute.
—Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge, 31
12th. All is impermanent in man except the pure bright essence of Alaya.
Man is its crystal ray; a beam of light immaculate within, a form of clay
material upon the lower surface. That beam is thy life-guide and thy true Self,
the Watcher and the silent Thinker, the victim of thy lower Self.
—The Voice of the Silence, 63
13th. Individuals in every age have more or less clearly apprehended the
Theosophical doctrines and wrought
them into the fabric of their lives. These doctrines belong exclusively to no
religion, and are confined to no society or time. They are the birthright of
every human soul.
—The Key to Theosophy, 18
14th. No human-born doctrine, no creed, however sanctified by custom and
antiquity, can compare in sacredness with the religion of Nature. The Key of
Wisdom that unlocks the massive gates leading to the arcana of the innermost
sanctuaries can be found hidden in her bosom only.
—The Secret Doctrine,
II, 797
15th. Travellers have met these adepts on the shores of the sacred
Ganges, brushed against them in the silent ruins of Thebes, and in the
mysterious deserted chambers of Luxor. . . . Historical memoirs have recorded
their presence in the brilliantly illuminated salons of European
aristocracy. They have been encountered again on the arid and desolate plains of
the Great Sahara, as in t