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vol. title: vol. period: 1879-1880 pages in vol.: 577 |
A Theosophist's View of Man's Position and Prospects*
Children of Maya, and living in more senses than one in the Kali-Yug, how can we arrive at truth; we who have no knowledge of the absolute, nor any standard by which we can attain to absolute truth? Only, as it seems to me, by ascertaining from the past and present exactly where we stand.
The famous parable, propounded 1250 years ago, on the occasion of the arrival of some of the earliest Christian missionaries to the English, at the court of King Edwin of Northumberland, is as true now as on the day when it was spoken. “Truly the life of a man in this world, compared with that life whereof we wot not, is on this wise. It is as when thou, O King, art sitting at supper with thine Aldermen and thy Thanes in the time of winter, when the hearth is lighted in the midst, and the hall is warm, but without the rains and the snow are falling and the winds are howling; then cometh a sparrow, and flieth through the house, she cometh in by one door and goeth out by another. While she is in the house, she feeleth not the storm of winter, but yet, when a little moment of rest is passed, she flieth again into the storm, and passeth away from our eyes. So is it with the life of man, it is but for a moment, what goeth afore it, and what cometh after it, wot we not at all. Wherefore if these strangers can tell us aught, that we may know whence man cometh and whither he goeth, let us hearken to them and follow their law.”
It is doubtful whether the Teutonic tribes brought anything with them from the common home of the Aryans in Central Asia, except exoteric fragments of some Oriental religion, nor does it appear that they were ever fully initiated, like their predecessors in Europe, and the Christian nations within the limits of the Roman Empire. But before I trace down the growth of our present knowledge, I would point out that whereas the seeds of many of the greatest advances in knowledge or intellectual development have been sown among the Latins, they have borne no fruit until transplanted to German soil.† I have just said that it is very doubtful whether the Teutonic nations were ever initiated, either before their conversion to Christianity, or afterwards; and therefore they eagerly took up the great intellectual movement of the Reformation. But the leaders of the Reformation shared in the ignorance and bigotry of their age, and endeavoured to bind all succeeding ages down to a barren worship of the letter, which has rendered Protestantism, especially in its more extreme forms, the baldest and most exoteric of all religions. Yet, they threw open the Bible to all, and the light has truly shone amid the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not, for the more or less hidden wisdom which it contains, especially that of the New Testament, has done much to counteract the evil tendency of the theology of the reformers. To digress for a moment, let me say that there are three very distinct meanings jumbled up in the English translation of the Gospels, under the word Heaven. In the synoptic Gospels the word is almost always in the plural, (except where it means the sky) and is evidently used for the Spiritual Worlds. The second meaning, already mentioned, is the sky. In this case the word is in the singular, and the meaning is obvious from the context. The third meaning is to be found in the Gospel of John. Here the word is in the singular, and usually denotes the state whence Christ descended, and to which he was to return, or in plain terms, Nirvana.
But even in physical matters, the horizon of Europeans 300 or 100 years ago was fearfully contracted. The earth was of very limited extent and duration to them; yet it was the only important portion of the universe, except Heaven and Hell. Their ideas were even more cramped than those of the Mohamadans, (narrow as is exoteric Mohamadanism), for the Arabs extended their voyages to Spain, India, China, the Ara Islands, Zanzibar, and Madagascar, and perhaps further; and in addition to their regarding the earth as of vast extent (far exceeding its real dimensions), they had imported part of the Indian metaphorical cosmogonies, which greatly enlarged their ideas of the vastness of the universe.‡
At length, however, came Galileo and Columbus, and the real dimensions and character of the earth and the physical universe were discovered.
After this came Rationalism, demanding that all knowledge resting on authority should produce its credentials. Its mission is to sweep away the falsities of the past to prepare for the future, and this work is as yet <... continues on page 10-346 >
* A paper read before the Theosophical Society, May 2nd, 1880.
† The Reformation, the Circulation of the Blood, and Modern Astronomy may be mentioned in illustration.
‡ See the story of Bulookiya, in the Arabian Nights.
Editor's notes
- ↑ A Theosophist's View of Man's Position and Prospects* by Kirby, W.F., London Spiritualist, No. 402, May 7, 1880, pp. 219-21
Sources
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London Spiritualist, No. 402, May 7, 1880, pp. 219-21