Enq. Your position does not seem to me a very enviable one.
Theo. It is not. But don’t you think that there must be something very noble, very exalted, very true, behind the Society and its philosophy, when the leaders and the founders of the movement still continue to work for it with all their strength? They sacrifice to it all comfort, all worldly prosperity, and success, even to their good name and reputation—aye, even to their honour—to receive in return incessant and ceaseless obloquy, relentless persecution, untiring slander, constant ingratitude, and misunderstanding of their best efforts, blows, and buffets from all sides—when by simply dropping their work they would find themselves immediately released from every responsibility, shielded from every further attack.
Enq. I confess, such a perseverance seems to me very astounding, and I wondered why you did all this.
Theo. Believe me for no self-gratification; only in the hope of training a few individuals to carry on our work for humanity by its original programme when the Founders are dead and gone. They have already found a few such noble and devoted souls to replace them. The coming generations, thanks to these few, will find the path to peace a little less thorny, and the way a little widened, and thus all this suffering will have produced good results, and their self-sacrifice will not have been in vain. At present, the main, fundamental object of the Society is to sow germs in the hearts of men, which may in time sprout, and under more propitious circumstances lead to a healthy reform, conducive of more happiness to the masses than they have hitherto enjoyed.
XIII.
ON THE MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT
THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.
THEOSOPHY AND ASCETICISM.
Enq. I have heard people say that your rules require all members to be vegetarians, celibates, and rigid ascetics; but you have not told me anything of the sort yet. Can you tell the truth once for all about this?
Theo. The truth is that our rules require nothing of the kind. The Theosophical Society does not even expect, far less require of any of its members that they should be ascetics in any way, except—if you call that asceticism—that they should try and benefit other people and be unselfish in their own lives.