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(May 1892)
Publications:
- The Path, vol. VII, no. 2, May 1892, pp. 49-53
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CTD entry in Russian: Карр, Томас Э. - Основа практической теософии
DATA
Title for references: Karr TE - The Basis of Practical Theosophy
Short description: Argues that Theosophy must prove its claimed superiority over other religions and philosophies by a ...
49 There are persons not in sympathy with Theosophic views, from whom is frequently heard the remark: — "What is the ultimate aim of all your theorizing? I do not see that it has any greater application to the daily needs of human life than other forms of philosophy and religion that you are so constantly decrying in your literature".
The query is a pertinent one, and worthy of some consideration, for certainly the reproach cannot be accounted undeserved if all50our efforts to acquire knowledge concerning the remote past and the far distant future of our earth and race are impotent to make a fuller, richer, and more rounded whole of the average human lot than has been the case hitherto. Theosophy would seem to have no adequate reason for existence unless it could justify itself by adaptation to the practical demands of our environment, since a philosophy or a religion too high for "human nature's daily food" is surely not of sufficient moment to be reckoned with as one of the factors in the world's progress.
The emphatic claim of Christian ethics is the love of the brother, Jesus of Nazareth being held to have been the one Maitreya (i. e. Buddha of Brotherly Love) that the world has seen; but beautiful as are the exhortations to fraternal living and fraternal dealing to be met with everywhere in the gospel teaching, there is still one text of yet more ancient date that has come down the ages from a fount of primitive wisdom, which gives in even more positive and forcible terms the same truth of the unity and solidarity of man, — the Mahavakya of the Brahman Scriptures, "Tat twam asi": freely rendered, "Thou and thy brother art the self-same". Useless to seek inculcation of a charity, a benevolence, a toleration of the brother so long as he is held at arm's length in the separateness of a distinct creation, now and for all time, as crystallized in the dogma of a personal immortality, which the custodians of Christ's teachings have evolved from their Master's scattered utterances. The true welding of the human race in an indissoluble oneness becomes far more realizable through a perception of Karmic law as exemplified in reincarnation than in the Christian doctrine, for we are thereby made to feel a fellowship and sympathy with every expression of human life, since we may have been the same in some prior existence, or may be the like again in some succeeding incarnation. The identity of one with another is thus so firmly established and so perpetually illustrated at our every turn, that the paramount and pressing need of an exhaustless brotherliness of toleration and of service is the one salient truth which starts out in bold relief from the bed-rock of Eastern teaching.
Altruism, then, is what lies at the very core of Theosophy, and, being so, must be the aim of Theosophic practice, as well as the keynote of its theory.
That its appeal has a more stringent insistence than other forms of religion we have seen, but the question remains: Has it a greater adaptiveness to the life wants of our suffering and struggling brethren than its firmly-intrenched compeers? and the an51swer thereto can only come from trial and experience, in the endeavor to bring Theosophy within the horizon of our more untutored and less fortunate neighbor. The problem is how to bring a knowledge we ourselves feel to be so valuable to the doors, and beyond them into the heart of family life among the sin-stained, poverty-stricken, ignorant, and degraded masses who yet are part and parcel of our very selves. It would make a sorrily stern introduction to our tenets if, rushing boldly to seize a horn of the dilemma, we presented them incontinently with the solution of their present evil besetments in the wrong-doing of previous lives, urging them forthwith on the strength of the past to better future action, when all their conditions and surroundings are not only unfavorable, but absolutely inimical thereto. We surely all have sufficient powers of imagination and enough fellow-feeling with the poor in their hard lot and hopeless environment to realize that, were we in the same predicament, not the most transcendent philosophy nor the most consoling truths of religion would penetrate, or so much as touch us, so long as filth and overcrowding, biting cold and aching hunger, stinted wage and hard-set task, held us inert and indifferent in their benumbing clutch. Yet beyond all question there are many intelligent, eager, receptive minds among the vast population of our slums, who may be ready and a-hungry for the very truths we have to offer, did their starved bodies and sordid conditions but allow them to brace their faculties towards the acquisition of a mental gain. The first step, therefore, towards any mental and moral reform of life with such conditions is in the amelioration of the physical environment, rendering it possible thereafter to sow the seeds of instruction that may fructify and bring forth ten and a hundred fold in higher endeavor, larger conceptions, greater responsibility, more persistent purpose.
To prove, then, to the incredulous non-sympathizer that Theosophists have indeed not only a basis of practical endeavor, but also a keener incentive to philanthropic work in the improvement of condition and consequent advance of knowledge among the less favored of our race, it would seem needful for us to bestir ourselves in some more active fashion than has been our custom, in order to make of our oft-repeated plea of a universal brotherhood at least an accomplishing, if not an accomplished fact, within the radius of our own immediate centers. As it is now, we talk in sounding phrases of the Universal Brotherhood of Man, but it is in reality the often-attacked Christian Churches and religious organizations, the Salvation Army and the like, which to our shame52make a practical demonstration of the brotherhood of man to man, in the widely dispensed and wisely administered charities that are extended to every needy claimant, while we Theosophists sit with folded hands and talk of the beauty of an altruism, which nevertheless is apparently unseductive when demanding personal effort and sacrifice. This is not as it should be. Without a practical trend in the direction of charitable endeavor the very first object of our Society becomes a mere sentiment, a platitude of the very emptiest kind, which, so far from eliciting the respect of our neighbors, is calculated to excite their contempt, and what we can less well bear, their ridicule. There should be no helpful work for the physical amelioration of the poor that as Theosophists we may not join in earnestly, heart and hand, for only so can we ever hope to pave the way towards an introduction of our special doctrines into their midst, since no movement in this age can afford to overlook the needs of the masses whose assent, as well as that of the lettered and cultured classes, must be the hall-mark of final approbation and future progress. Nor should the votaries of Theosophy rest content with merely aiding the good work started in other channels, but seek to establish, to maintain, and to enlarge under the ægis of the Theosophical Society, what in the beginning may be but small nuclei of intrepid pioneers, whose persistent and patient efforts towards all practical ends would not fail to develop important, however slow-ripening, results in the future.
We are often told that it is only the helpers who are helped, which would appear to furnish a most resistless motive — however deeply lurking a selfishness may lie behind it — to altruistic action. Among the monkish legends there is perhaps no more pathetic one than that of Judas Iscariot, called from out the hottest depths of a mediæval hell to sail about for one hour's space each Christmas night on a block of ice in Northern seas, the dearly-prized respite having been earned by an act of passing charity to the Joppan leper. So true it is that what we sow we inevitably reap even to the least germ, — the undeviating law whereby the good deed wrought compasses its own reward, however careless or sordid and selfish the impulse, cannot be evaded — therefore:
Go, not for the gain, but for the joy of the deed,
But for the Duty to crave.
Go, with the spiritual life, the higher volition and action,
With the great girdle of GOD, go and encompass the earth.
Say not in thine heart, And what then were it accomplished?53Go with the sun and the stars, and yet evermore in thy spirit
Say to thyself: It is good; yet there is better than it.
This that I see is not all, and this that I do is but little;
Nevertheless it is good, though is there better than it.
Thos. E. Karr, F. T. S.
Footnotes