Keightley J.W. - Theosophy in Daily Life: Difference between revisions

  | original title = Theosophy in Daily Life

  | has text = yes

  | publications = [[Lucifer/Vol3|''Lucifer'', vol. 3]], no. 18, February 1889, pp. 450-455

  | read links = [[Lucifer/Vol3/Text|Electronic journal edition in Teopedia]]

  | origin = English: J. Campbell ver Planck, F.T.S., ''Theosophy in Daily Life''

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READING in the Sacred Books of the East, I came upon these lines:

As theosophists, we have given our adherence to the principles of Universal Brotherhood and a search for Truth. The most indifferent member of our Society has still signed such a pledge, calling his word of honour to attest its reality. Some of us have gone much further than this. A consideration which presents itself to all alike, a reality which is no respecter of persons, is this: Are we or are we not conforming to the spirit and letter of that pledge? Are we endeavouring to form a ''real'' Brotherhood? I do not need to point out that intellectual enlightenment is only a means, and one of several means, to that benign end. It will be apparent to any thinking person that the intellectual germs which are the bearers of Truth must sprout and bear in our lives; must be transformed into deeds and thoughts impersonal, fraternal and informed with universal love, or else they are mere withered husks which only encumber the mind that has received them. We may send our literature into every home; we may find our facts upon every man’s tongue, and still our Society will be an utter failure as a vital, living Brotherhood if the spirit and activity of universal Love is not infused into it. No one can so infuse it but ourselves. Each individual is

responsible for its absence, if it be absent, for it alone adequately represents our pledge. We have not given the attestations of our honour to a mere formalism, but to a Reality; to an unlimited energic Charity, without which we are indeed as brass and tinkling cymbals.

Spiritual advancement is not a result of mechanical (so to call it) cyclic progress, nor yet a result of the will of the gods. The progress of Law must be reinforced by human will and effort before the personal soul can be benefitted by it. The way of the race is devious and long; it is accomplished through individual effort, and each real reform in institutions, in morals, in every department of Life, brings us one step nearer the goal.

These things, external though they appear, may each be made the vehicle of higher powers, through the energy of universal Love. As witnesses to the expanding heart of man and to the vital growth of his belief in human and divine consolidation, they bring us inwardly as well as outwardly into closer relations with one another.

There are many theosophists who do not grasp the urgency of this question concerning the utilization of Theosophy in daily life. Perhaps some of them feel their own ignorance, their unfitness to teach, and wait to know more before they speak to other men. They forget that he who cannot teach can work. Our work teaches. Moreover, through unselfish work we are taught. To learn intellectually, some may wait in vain; and indeed none will truly learn in any sense until they convert what little they do know into working force, just as our food is useless to us until its digestion has set free some amount of nervous energy, for whose translation into work Nature herself provides. All these natural processes are copies of those of the spiritual world and thus all things bear witness to that Truth which is their Being. Other theosophists are struggling with material cares; others do not stop to think of the real bearing of their professions of Brotherhood. In short, as many reasons for indifference prevail as were sent to the Biblical King when he bade his neighbours come to the wedding feast. Still I believe the chief of these is the want of co-ordinated thought. Not so long ago, an earnest student wrote to the American Headquarters to say that through an appeal made to him for assistance in some work which was being done, he had come to realize the necessity of such work and the lack of it; that he was sure many others, like himself, were so preoccupied by daily cares that they had not waked up to the importance of helping the theosophical movement in some direction, and he offered money to print an edition of a tract addressed to indifferent theosophists, if someone would write it. These pages are the outcome, in second remove, of that work which stimulated him. As we light a fire by communicating to it the vibrations of a flame, so contact with the earnest effort of another sets free a corresponding and latent energy in the heart prepared for higher development.

These considerations are all the more pressing to-day. We are nearing the end of the cycle and all events move more rapidly. Effort made now will have a far greater result than it would have later on. The momentum of a moving object depends upon the energy expended at its start, and those theosophists who are sufficiently intuitive to take advantage of cyclic currents and to work ardently with them and with the Great Powers, will find that they have laid up treasures there, where, to quote Emerson, compound interest is the rate of the exchequer. The creditor of this exchequer is not personal man, but Humanity: what we give as individuals is repaid to the race. This is just, for from that race we spring in part. One year’s work done now may fructify far more rapidly for this cause which is our own, than might ten years’ work done at a less propitious time. It is true that materiality is now at its highest rate of progress, but with a latent downward tendency; while spiritual activity is accelerating with an upward tendency due to the present curve of progress. Can we doubt which will prevail? It is now in our power to secure the prevalence of spiritual activity in individual lives, just as the Law has already provided for its prevalence in the Universal Scheme. There is scarcely one of us so poor that he cannot make some willing sacrifice, or has not some time or energy to give. Quantity does not matter so much as quality; it is the spirit of unselfish Love that works all wonders.

Turning our attention from individuals to the corporate Body itself, we find that we are reproached, and justly reproached, with doing little, if any, practical work. As we do not believe in indiscriminate missionary labours and argumentative conversion, we must seek other fields. Are there no children among us to be rescued from the doubts and confusion of our time? Where are our Branch Sunday Schools, where music, story and object teaching of spirit through natural lessons, may give the little ones a happy and valued hour? Where are our Branch free libraries, with one member told off weekly to attend them, open of an

evening to all comers? Can we do nothing to help those social outcasts, so rarely rescued by formal religion, because “the deed of virtue is without the love that should shine through it.” It is vain to try to stop those who are on the fatally swift descent of sin, by assurances that some other, however divine, is responsible for them. If we can grapple their minds with the thought that they themselves are their own saviours and that we are integrally and and actually their Brothers and Sisters, then indeed we may recover lost ground for the race. Everywhere great questions and great issues are confronting us and in some one of these each Branch should have a share. Not only should we join with outsiders in such good deeds as they have found to do, but we ought to have some distinctively theosophical work of our own, first as individuals, next as Branches. For example, the competitive struggle and system of monopolies are working as much – if not more – injury as the use of intoxicating liquors. Everywhere thinkers of benevolent aspirations are inaugurating co-operative colonies or works. One such is the Credit Foncier of Sinaloa, a colony established in Mexico on co-operative principles, having excellent privileges from the Mexican Government. The colonists own the land, railroads and industries in common. All public property is so held, but the home is a private institution. The colony is governed by a body of elected Directors. The women vote equally with the men. No corporate churches are allowed; each man is free to worship as he may please in his own home. No intoxicating drinks are made or sold; no gambling or other houses of ill-repute allowed within the colony precincts. All persons are employed by the colony itself; labour is interchanged and the net gain is divided among colonists according to their shares of stock. This is perhaps the largest cooperative venture ever made and has unprecedented advantages of harbour situation and climate, but, above all, its ethical principles are integral and vital. At one time a colonist wrote in behalf of a betrayed and deserted woman, against whom the doors of our civilization were closed, when she tried to return to the path of moral duty. The directors promptly responded by the gift of a share of stock and the assurance that all who endeavoured to live honestly and in a spirit of true fraternity were welcome to Sinaloa, whatever might be the mistakes of their past. No more theosophical deed than this is known to me. It would seem as if colonies founded upon more liberal and just division of labour and profit, upon a more enlightened system of interchange and interdependence, would tend to facilitate the advance of the race. All persons may not be able to join them, but they can help them. Clubs are already founded to assist co-operation, and such might be started in Branches interested in seeing justice established as the regulator of human institutions. It is not division of property that the honest man wants, but a division of labour and profits other than that awarded by a system which regards money as the chief factor of prosperity and

energy – the great life force – as its underling and slave. While I am well aware that physical energy is but one division of that life force, as regards the value of such energy and that expended for the amassing of personal wealth and for personal and selfish indulgences, I submit that the former is far higher than the latter and should not be underpaid. ''The motive determines the value and quality of energy as well as the plane in which it operates.'' That other theosophists think with me is proved by the interest of others in co-operative principles, while the fact that these principles and the life they give rise to, lead thoughtful minds into a more distinctly theosophical line of thought, is evidenced by two directors and some members of the above mentioned colony having joined the T. S. Godin, the great co-operator of Guise, also became a theosophist.