HPB-SB-11-171: Difference between revisions

And mark the inconsistency! Having made this sneering remark, J. K. himself unconsciously answers it in another reproach, which he appears to suppose contains information new to us. “No one of the invisible fraternity can give that which one’s own individual soul can give” (can alone give, I presume he means.) Exactly. Now hear Colonel Olcott, in answer to the question, “On one’s becoming a member, is any course prescribed for him to follow with a view to his continual progression, and the acquisition of the mastery over his baser nature?” Ans.—“What an important question is this which heads the second series that I read to you! How can one be helped to acquire the mastery over his baser nature? Mighty problem! How change the brute into the angel? Why ask for the obvious answer to so simple a question? Does my friend imagine there is more than one way in which it can be done? Can any other but one’s own self effect this purification, this splendid conquest, in comparison with whose glory all the greatest victories of war sink into contemptible insignificance? There must be first the belief that this conquest is possible; then, knowledge of the method; then, practice. Men, only passively animal, become brutal from ignorance of the consequences of the first downward step. So, too, they fail to become God-like because of their ignorance of the potentiality of effort. Certainly one can never improve himself who is satisfied with his present circumstances. The reformer is of necessity a discontented man—discontented with what pleases common souls—striving after something better. Self-reform exacts the same temperament. A man who thinks well of his vices, his prejudices, his superstitions, his habits, his physical, mental, moral state, is in no mood to begin to climb the high ladder which reaches from the world of his littleness to a broader one. He had better roll over in his mire, and dismiss Theosophy with a grunt of impatience.”... “You understand now, do you not, the meaning of the various sections and degrees of our Theosophical curriculum? We welcome most heartily across our threshold everyman or woman of ascertained respectable character and professed sincerity of purpose who wishes to study the ancient philosophies. He is on probation. If he is a true Theosophist at bottom, he will show it. If not, he will show it, and go back {{Style S-HPB SB. Continues on|11-172}}