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Theosophic Morals.
Some remarks professedly concerned with “The Higher Life,” appearing in “The Path” for July, over the nom de plume of Murdhna Joti, strike me as presenting the readers with so narrow and unwholesome a view of Theosophic principles, that I find myself impelled to point out some of the misconceptions from which they seem to arise. That hard-worked phrase the “Dweller on the Threshold” has been interpreted in many fantastic senses, but surely it has never before been saddled with so ludicrously inappropriate a meaning as in this essay where it is made to stand for love of kindred and love of country. That these ennobling sentiments are what the writer means by “family defects” and “national defects” is apparent from the passage that would be little less than blasphemous in the ears of any real oriental Chela with whom I have ever been acquainted,—in which:—“A Mahatma has, it appears, declared that he has still patriotism. But he has not said nor would say that he has still family attachment. This proves that he has got out of the defects of the family to which he belongs, while he is only striving to get out of national defects, some of which at any rate cling to him.” The reference here is of course to one of the letters quoted by me in the Occult World, in which the writer so beautifully shows that the exalted rank in nature to which he has attained, leaves him as free as ever to entertain generous emotions of sympathy with the race to which his latest personality belongs. If he had been dealing with the subject from another point of view he would have equally shown himself to be,—as I have good reason to believe that he is,—animated by still more specific attachments to certain persons of his physical kindred. “Defects” of family and defects of nationality may undoubtedly be reflected in given individuals, and like any other personal failings may in such cases stand in the way of devotion to the Higher Life; but such defects are not those which are convertible terms, according to the extraordinary essay before me, with healthy patriotism and domestic affection. And I can hardly imagine a more grotesquely misleading account of occult progress than that which represents the “beginner” as employed upon first extinguishing his regard for his relations, and going on to teach himself indifference to the land of his birth. If the extravagance of such a doctrine could be enhanced in an essay addressed to Western readers, it would be thus intensified by its author’s reference to the “family duties” which must be duly accomplished first before the promising neophyte in the training subsequently prescribed for him is at liberty to enter the “circle of ascetics.” A certain haziness clings round his theory as to the nature of these duties, but enough is said to show any reader familiar with India, that the writer’s mind is running on the exoteric customs of the Hindu which constitute the local superstitions of the common people,—a designation which applies equally to one caste as to another, for modern Brahmins may be as thoroughly dissociated from the spirit of the esoteric doctrine and as hopelessly saturated with corrupt conventionalities as British churchwardens or the corresponding functionaries in America. Some such fancies derived from exoteric Hindu thinking have clearly inspired the article under notice. In India even exoteric thinking recognizes the existence of Mahatmas and theories concerning the methods by which their condition may be approached, but Theosophic students in Europe and America should be on their guard against supposing that every thing which emanates from an Indian source, must on that account be true occult philosophy.
Especially in India, but in other parts of the world too, in various disguises we continually encounter the fundamental blunder of the mere fakir that progress in occult development is to be acquired by simulating some of the external characteristics of a development that has been accomplished. No doubt there are states of immaterial existence to which human beings may ultimately climb,—at distances of time as immeasureable as those heights themselves, where such relative attributes as those which invest embodied human beings with specific attachments, will be merged in the higher mysteries of nature, which we can talk about already, perhaps, and assign names to, but assuredly cannot yet realize, or even effectually comprehend. But it may be, there is hardly any level even in Adeptship, at which still embodied humanity is ripe to shed such attachments, and the notion of talking about attempting this from the point of view of incipient chelaship is as ludicrous as it would be to talk about pruning a seedling which had just protruded its first green shoot above the ground; and suggests, in regard to human illustrations, the notion of a beardless youngster, who presents himself to a barber to be shaved. We Theosophists are engaged in an undertaking which makes it very desirable that we should not render ourselves ridiculous; and though there is no endeavor possible for us which is better entitled to respect than an honest attempt to lead “the Higher Life,” we may perhaps more easily bring discredit on our movement by talking nonsense about that grand ideal, than in any other way. We may go further, indeed, than the mere recognition of nobility attaching to the pursuit of the Higher Life. We may grant that no one can truly be said to have assimilated the principles of esoteric teaching unless these have made a sensible impression on his conduct and on the practical attitude he assumes in relation to others and the world at large. But it will be a matter to be determined by each man’s temperament, how far he keeps his own personal dealings, so to speak, with the great principles of Theosophy a private transaction between himself and his conscience, or how far he ventures to bring them into relief by devoting himself especially as a Theosophist to the task of preaching exalted morality. I am now of course passing out, on my own account, into the ocean of Theosophic discussion in general, and the sentence just penned has no reference to the article I began by reviewing,—which appears to me to be very far from promulgating any morality or even coherent sense, exalted or otherwise. But on the subject at large a few general remarks at this juncture may perhaps not be inappropriate.
The most exalted morality imaginable is inevitably deduced from the principles of occult science, for by explaining to mankind how it is that they really evolve through successive lives, each depending on the last and on all its predecessors as summed up in the last, the basic motives for good conduct are set out with far greater precision than they can be suggested by the bribes or threats of conventional religion. Such temptations and warnings, as experience has shown, come to be distrusted or no longer feared as the manifestly erroneous conceptions with which they are entangled, become apparent to advancing intelligence. Then, loving the right still, under the influence of an inner intuition they have not learned to interpret properly, people attempt sometimes to supply the vacant places of their vanished faith, with painful abstract theories of a barren duty, which take their rise in no intelligible sanction and tend to no specific result. For mere morality divorced from religion and justified by no prospects of future existence, it is impossible that the human mind could permanently furnish a nourishing soil. To provide for the gathering emergency the esoteric doctrine is now beginning to shine on the world. In the longer freedom with which it will shine hereafter, no doubt it will do much more even than explain to men the scientific and satisfactory reasons why, right is right, why the pursuit of good conduces to happiness and vice versa. Already indeed, it is made apparent that the highest degrees of exaltation possible for human beings, can only be attained in connection with a pursuit of good which has a still more subtle motive than the thirst for spiritual happiness—which is animated by that unsurpassably sublime intention (often talked about so glibly, but surely realized so seldom) unselfishness and disinterested zeal for the welfare of others. But even if we do not handle that exalted topic—which sits ill upon the lips of any preachers who do not at all events outshine the average achievements of ordinary good men in the exercise of unselfishness, is there not in what is put forward above in the first purpose of Theosophy a sufficiently exhilarating task to absorb our best energies? To be laying the foundations of the future system of thought which must in due time replace—as the guiding rule of men’s lives—the earlier and cruder prescriptions of a priestcraft that their widening comprehension of Nature is fast outgrowing,—is not that a sufficiently magnificent task for the Theosophical Society?
Certainly esoteric teaching opens up possibilities before the sight of ardent spiritual aspirants that suggest to some eager hearts the pursuit of an object—which if rightly understood may be more magnificent still, but which, as contemplated in the beginning may often be prompted by a relatively selfish motive,—the personal pursuit of Adeptship. But in its original purpose the welfare of mankind at large and not the enlistment of new recruits in the army of chelaship was as I read its design, the idea of the Theosophical Society. And how was that design to be carried out? This question seems to me to touch a point which it is highly important to keep in view at the present moment. The Theosophical movement did not begin by preaching de haut en bas an all but impossible code of ethics. It began by the highly practical course of linking its operations with one of the most growing impulses in the most spiritually minded sections of the Western community. These were not the merely good and pious representatives of still surviving, though decaying religious systems; they were not the hopeless however unselfish exponents of a barren philosophy that threw forward no light on the future; they were found mainly among people who in one way or another, and following various false beacons, perhaps, were realizing that discoveries were possible beyond the barriers that had formerly seemed to set a limit to the range of the human senses. The bold though bewildered pioneers of psychic inquiry were naturally marked out, indeed, to be appealed to first by the esoteric teachers. For them above all was the rudderless condition of modern religions thought a dark and threatening danger. Along the road they had set out to travel they would certainly not stop short. But readers of Theosophic literature will not require to be reminded where the study of occult phenomena un-illuminated by occult morality must ultimately conduct its enthusiasts. The classes referred to were best qualified to receive the new dispensation: and most urgently in need of it. To them therefore the Theosophical propaganda in the beginning was directed, and this is the consideration which will be seen to explain the mystery that has so frequently been discussed in more recent years—the free and so to speak the extravagant display of occult wonders and marvellous phenomena with which the advent of the Theosophical movement was heralded. Its directors as it were, had to put themselves at the head of the psychic movement generally, in order to direct its future course aright, and they could not do this without commanding the attention of persons already largely experienced in psychic investigation.
No doubt the time has now gone by when the policy that thus inaugurated the Theosophical movement is either practicable or desirable. “The age of miracles is past,” for us as for mankind at large,—always making allowance for the familiar correction required by the saying that the age for helping on the more general comprehension of those resources of nature with which the “miracles” had to do has not passed, by any means. The interpretation of Nature—the promulgation of truth concerning the “powers latent in Man”—to the end that the world at large may the better understand its own destinies and promote its own healthier development through an immediate future, is still the ample task that lies before the working members of our organization. Again let us say that no one proposes to divorce this from recognition with which it is so intimately blended, of the sublime morality expressed in the phrase—the Brotherhood of Man. But in our zeal for the starry goal in the far distance, it will be discreet, on our part, to avoid the mistake of the Greek philosopher and not to forget the ground at our feet.
A. P. Sinnett.