Again there arises the thought “I am a student, a holder of a portion of the mystic lore.” Insidiously there steals in the thought “Behold I am a little more than other men, who have not penetrated so far.” Know then oh, man, that you are not as great even as they. He who thinks he is wise is the most ignorant of men, and he who begins to believe he is wise is in greater danger than any other man who lives.
You think, oh, man, that because you have obtained a portion of occult knowledge, that it entitles you to withdraw from contact with the rest of mankind. It is not so. If you have obtained true knowledge it forces you to meet all men not only half way, but more than that to seek them. It urges you not to retire but, seeking contact, to plunge into the misery and sorrow of the world, and with your cheering word, if you have no more (the Mystic has little else) strive to lighten the burden for some struggling soul.
You dream of fame. We know no such thing as fame. He who seeks the upward path finds that all is truth; that evil is the good gone astray. Why should we ask for fame? It is only the commendation of those we strive to help.
Desire neither notice, fame or wealth. Unknown you are in retirement. Being fameless you are undisturbed in your seclusion, and can walk the broad face of the earth fulfilling your duty, as commanded, unrecognized.
If the duty grows hard, or you faint by the way, be not discouraged, fearful or weary of the world. Remember that “Thou may’st look for silence in tumult, solitude in company, light in darkness, forgetfulness in pressures, vigor in despondency, courage in fear, resistance in temptation, peace in war, and quiet in tribulation.”
American Mystic.
Reviews and Notes.
Theosophy in the Press.—A great many articles, both editorial and otherwise, have within the past few months appeared in the daily papers, the most of them full of misstatements mixed with ignorance of not only Theosophy, but also of many things well known in literature. One paper devoted two columns to the subject, and the editor called them thorough and accurate, yet we find in it the mind cure treated as Theosophy, and then all the cranky notions the writer could rake up in New York and Boston are called “Buddhist bosh.”
But some Theosophists have been guilty of ventilating in the papers the statement that Theosophy is astralism, that is to say, that the object of the Society is to induce people to go into the study and practice of spirit raising, cultivating the abnormal faculties, of clairvoyance and the like, ignoring entirely the prime object, real end, aim and raison d’etre of the movement—universal brotherhood and ethical teaching. In fact, we make bold to assert, from our own knowledge and from written documents, that the Mahatmas, who started the Society, and stand behind it now, are distinctly opposed to making prominent these phenomenal leanings, this hunting after clairvoyance and astral bodies, and that they have so declared most unmistakeably, stating their wish and advice to be, that “the Society should prosper on its ethical, philosophical and moral worth alone.”