Blavatsky H.P. - What shall we do for our Fellow-Men: Difference between revisions

  | alternatives = [https://www.katinkahesselink.net/blavatsky/articles/v11/y1889_065.htm KH]

<center>[Lucifer, Vol. V, No. 26, October, 1889, pp. 156-165]</center>

You have obliged my friends and myself by answering or annotating my letter to you in your number of July 15th. Will you allow us to continue this discussion? Several letters which I have received in consequence of this correspondence not only from Germany, but also from England,<ref>Perchance also, from Madras?—[Editor, Lucifer.]</ref> make it appear likely that your readers on the other side of the Channel also take an interest in this all-important question As the purport of my former communication has been misunderstood, I have now made this question the title of my present letter, in order to emphasize the point. My friends and I did not ask: Shall we do anything for our fellow-men or nothing? but: What shall we do for them?

You agree with us—as your note d to my last letter (p. 431) unmistakably shows—that the ultimate Goal which the mystic or the occultist have to strive for, is not perfection IN existence (the “world”) but absolute being: that is, we have to strive for deliverance FROM all existence in any of the three worlds or planes of existence. The difference of opinions, however, is this: Shall we now, nevertheless, assist all our fellow-men indiscriminately in their worldly affairs; shall we occupy ourselves with their national and individual Karma, in order to help them to improve the “world” and to live happily in it; shall we strive with them to realize socialistic problems, to further science, arts and industries, to teach them cosmology, the evolution of man and of the universe, etc., etc.,—or on the other hand, shall we only do the best we can to show our fellow-men the road of wisdom that will lead them out of the world and as straight as possible towards their acknowledged goal of absolute existence (Para-Nirvana, Moksha, Atma)? Shall we consequently only work for those who are willing to get rid of all individual existence and yearning to be delivered from all selfishness, from all strivings, who are longing only for eternal peace?

Answer. As the undersigned accepts for her views and walk in life no authority dead or living, no system of {{Page aside|465}}philosophy or religion but one––namely, the esoteric teachings of ethics and philosophy of those she calls “MASTERS”—answers have, therefore, to be given strictly in accordance with these teachings. My first reply then is: Nothing of that which is conducive to help man, collectively or individually, to live—not “happily”—but less unhappily in this world, ought to be indifferent to the Theosophist-Occultist. It is no concern of his whether his help benefits a man in his worldly or spiritual progress; his first duty is to be ever ready to help if he can, without stopping to philosophize. It is because our clerical and lay Pharisees too often offer a Christian dogmatic tract, instead of the simple bread of life to the wretches they meet—whether these are starving physically or morally—that pessimism, materialism and despair win with every day more ground in our age. Weal and woe, or happiness and misery, are relative terms. Each of us finds them according to his or her predilections; one in worldly, the other in intellectual pursuits, and no one system will ever satisfy all. Hence, while one finds his pleasure and rest in family joys, another in “Socialism” and the third in a “longing only for eternal peace,” there may be those who are starving for truth, in every department of the science of nature, and who consequently are yearning to learn the esoteric views about “cosmology the evolution of man and of the universe.”—H.P.B.

According to our opinion the latter course is the right one for a mystic; the former one we take to be a statement of our views. Your notes to my former letter are quite consistent with this view, for in your note c you say: “Para-nirvana is reached only when the Manvantara has closed and during the ‘night’ of the universe or Pralaya.” If the final aim of paranirvana cannot be attained individually, but only solidarity by the whole of the present humanity, it stands to reason, that in order to arrive at our consummation we have not only to do the best we can for the suppression of our own self, but we have to work first for the world-process to hurry all the worldly interests of Hottentots and the European vivisectors having sufficiently advanced to see their final goal of salvation are ready to join us in striving towards that deliverance [meaning not clear].

Answer. According to our opinion as there is no essential difference between a “mystic” and a “Theosophist-Esotericist” {{Page aside|466}}or Eastern Occultist, the above-cited course is not “the right one for a mystic.” One, who while “yearning to be delivered from all selfishness” directs at the same time all his energies only to that portion of humanity which is of his own way of thinking, shows himself not only very selfish but guilty of prejudice and partiality. When saying that Para, or Paranirvana rather, is reached only at the Manvantaric close, I never meant to imply the “planetary” but the whole Cosmic Manvantara, i.e., at the end of “an age” of Brahmâ, not one “Day.” For this is the only time when during the universal Pralaya mankind (i.e., not only the terrestrial mankind but that of every “man” or “manu-bearing” globe, star, sun or planet) will reach “solidarily” Paranirvana, and even then it will not be the whole mankind, but only those portions of the mankinds which will have made themselves ready for it. Our correspondent's remark about the “Hottentots” and “European vivisectors” seems to indicate to my surprise that my learned Brother has in his mind only our little unprogressed Terrene mankind?—H.P.B.

You have the great advantage over us, that you speak with absolute certainty on all these points, in saying: “this is the esoteric doctrine,” and “such is the teaching of my masters.” We do not think that we have any such certain warrant for our belief; on the contrary, we want to learn, and are ready to receive wisdom, wherever it may offer itself to us. We know of no authority or divine revelation; for, as far as we accept Vedantic or Buddhistic doctrines, we only do so because we have been convinced by the reasons given; or, where the reasons prove to be beyond our comprehension, but where our intuition tells us: this, nevertheless, is likely to be true, we try our best to make our understanding follow our intuition.

Answer. I speak “with absolute certainty” only so far as my own personal belief is concerned. Those who have not the same warrant for their belief as I have, would be very credulous and foolish to accept it on blind faith. Nor does the writer believe any more than her correspondent and his friends in any “authority” let alone "divine revelation"! Luckier in this than they are, I need not even rely in this as they do on my intuition, as there is no infallible intuition But what I do believe in is: (1), the unbroken oral teachings {{Page aside|467}}revealed by living divine men during the infancy of mankind to the elect among men; (2), that it has reached us un-altered; and (3), that the MASTERS are thoroughly versed in the science based on such uninterrupted teaching.—H.P.B.

In reference, therefore, to your note e, it was not, nor is it, our intention “to inflict any criticism on you”; on the contrary we should never waste time with opposing anything we think wrong; we leave that to its own fate; but we try rather to get at positive information or arguments, wherever we think they may offer themselves. Moreover, we have never denied, nor shall we ever forget, that we owe you great and many thanks for your having originated the present movement and for having made popular many striking ideas hitherto foreign to European civilization. We should now feel further obliged to you, if you (or your masters) will give us some reasons, which could make it appear likely to us, why paranirvana could not be attained by any jiva at any time (a), and why the

Answer (a). There is some confusion here. I never said that no jiva could attain Paranirvana, nor meant to infer that “the final goal can only be reached solidarily” by our present humanity. This is to attribute to me an ignorance to which I am not prepared to plead guilty, and in his turn my correspondent has misunderstood me. But as every system in India teaches several kinds of pralayas as also of Nirvanic or “Moksha” states, Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden has evidently confused the Prakritika with the Naimittika Pralaya, of the Visishtadwaita Vedantins. I even suspect that my esteemed correspondent has imbibed more of the teachings of this particular sect of the three Vedantic schools than he had bargained for; that his “Brahmin Guru” in short, of whom there are various legends coming to us from Germany, has coloured his pupil far more with the philosophy of Sri Ramanujacharya, than with that of Sri Sankarachârya. But this is a trifle connected with circumstances beyond his control and of a Karmic character. His aversion to “Cosmology” and other sciences including theogony, and as contrasted with “Ethics” pure and simple, dates also from the period he was taken in hand by the said learned guru. The latter expressed it personally to us, after his sudden salto mortali from esotericism—too difficult to comprehend and therefore to teach—to ethics which anyone who knows a {{Page aside|468}}Southern language or two of India, can impart by simply translating his texts from philosophical works with which the country abounds. The result of this is, that my esteemed friend and correspondent talks Visishtadwaitism as unconsciously as M. Jourdain talked “prose,” while believing he argues from the Mahayana and Vedantic standpoint—pure and simple. If otherwise, I place myself under correction. But how can a Vedantin speak of Jivas as though these were separate entities and independent of JIVATMA, the one universal soul! This is a purely Visishtadwaita doctrine which asserts that Jivatma is different in each individual from that in another individual? He asks “why paranirvana could not be attained by any jiva at any time.” We answer that if by “jiva” he means the “Higher Self” or the divine ego of man, only—then we say it may reach Nirvana, not Paranirvana, but even this, only when one becomes Jivanmukta, which does not mean “at any time.” But if he understands by “Jiva” simply the one life which, the Visishtadwaitas say, is contained in every particle of matter, separating it from the sarira or body that contains it, then, we do not understand at all what he means. For, we do not agree that Parabrahm only pervades every Jiva, as well as each particle of matter, but say that Parabrahm is inseparable from every Jiva, as from every particle of matter since it is the absolute, and that IT is in truth that Jivatma itself crystallized—for want of a better word. Before I answer his questions, therefore I must know whether he means by Paranirvana, the same as I do, and of which of the Pralayas he is talking. Is it of the Prakritika Maha Pralaya, which takes place every 311,040,000,000,000 years; or of the Naimittika Pralaya occurring after each Brahma Kalpa equal to 1,000 Maha Yugas, or which? Convincing reasons can be given then only when two disputants understand each other. I speak from the esoteric standpoint almost identical with the Adwaita interpretation: Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden argues from that of—let him say what system, for, lacking omniscience, I cannot tell.—H.P.B.

1. The unselfishness of the Altruist has a very different character according to which of the two views he takes. To begin with our view, the true Mystic who believes that he can attain deliverance from the world and from his individuality independent of the Karma of any other entities, or of the whole humanity, is an Altruist, because and so far as he is a monist, that is to say, on account of the tan twam asi. Not the form or the individuality, but the being of all entities is the same and is his own; in proportion as he feels his own avidya, ajñâna or unwisdom, so does he feel that of other entities, and has compassion with them on that account (b). To take now the other view: Is not the altruism of an

(b). To feel “compassion” without an adequate practical result ensuing from it is not to show oneself an “Altruist” but the reverse. Real self-development on the esoteric lines is action. “Inaction in a deed of mercy becomes an action in a deadly sin.” (Vide “The Two Paths” in The Voice of the Silence, p. 31.)—H.P.B.

{{Style P-No indent|occultist who sees himself tied to the Karma of all his fellow-men, and who, on that account, labours for and with them, rather an egotistical one? For is not at the bottom of his “unselfishness” the knowledge that he cannot work out his own salvation at any lesser price? The escape from selfishness for such a man is self-sacrifice for the “world”; for the mystic, however, it is self-sacrifice to the eternal, to absolute being. Altruism is certainly considered one of the first requirements of any German Theosopher; we cannot or will not speak for others—but we are rather inclined to think that altruism had never been demanded in this country in the former sense (of self-sacrifice for the “world”), but only in the latter sense of self-sacrifice to the eternal (c).}}

(c). An Occultist does not feel "himself tied to the Karma of all his fellow-men," no more than one man feels his legs motionless because of the paralysis of another man's legs. But this does not prevent the fact that the legs of both are evolved from, and contain the same ultimate essence of the ONE LIFE. Therefore, there can be no egotistical feeling in his labours for the less favoured brother. Esoterically, there is no other way, means or method of sacrificing oneself “to the eternal” than by working and sacrificing oneself for the collective spirit of Life, embodied in, and (for us) represented in its highest divine aspect by Humanity alone.

Witness the Nirmanakâya—the sublime doctrine which no Orientalist understands to this day but which Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden can find in the IInd and IIIrd Treatises in The Voice of the Silence. Naught else shows forth the eternal; and in no other way than this can any mystic or occultist truly reach the eternal, whatever the Orientalists and the vocabularies of Buddhist terms may say, for the real meaning of the Trikâya, the triple power of Buddha's embodiment, and of Nirvâna in its triple negative and positive definitions has ever escaped them.

If our correspondent believes that by calling himself “theosopher” in preference to “theosophist” he escapes thereby any idea of sophistry connected with his views, then he is mistaken. I say it in all sincerity, the opinions he expresses in his letters are in my humble judgment the very fruit of sophistry. If I have misunderstood him, I stand under correction.—H.P.B.

 

Answer (a). It is difficult to find out how the view expressed in my last answer can lead to such an inference, or where I have advised my brother Theosophists to join men “in all their worldly interests and pursuits”! Useless to quote here again that which is said in note a, for everyone can turn to the passage and see that I have said nothing of the kind. For one precept I can give a dozen. “Not nakedness, not matted hair, not dirt, not fasting or lying on the earth . . . not sitting motionless, can purify one who is full of doubt,” says Dhammapada (verse 141). “Neither abstinence from fish or flesh, nor going naked, nor the shaving of the head, nor matted hair, etc., etc., will cleanse a man {{Page aside|471}}not free from delusions,“ says Âmagandha Sutta (7, 11). This is what I meant. Between salvation through dirt and stench, like St. Labro and some Fakirs, and worldly life with an eye to every interest, there is a long way. Strict asceticism in the midst of the world, is more meritorious than avoiding those who do not think as we do, and thus losing an opportunity of showing them the truth.—H.P.B.