London Lectures of 1907 by Annie Besant (books to read for beginners txt) 📖

are more in touch with the forces that make the future. You are surrounded, bathed, in the atmosphere in which the future shall grow. All that is good in you is nourished by those forces. All that is harmonious with them is strengthened by their overmastering might. You cannot be amongst us without sharing that inspiration; you cannot be a member without sharing the life which is poured out unstinted through all the vessels of the Theosophical Society. Outside it is not worth while to say this, for that is not a reason for inducing people to come in; but you may rejoice that good karma in the past has brought you into the Society in the present. It has given you the right to have this opportunity of a nobler birth in the coming time, has given you the opportunity of taking part in that great work which is beginning to be wrought among humanity. It gives you, from your life in the heavenly places, touch with powers and opportunities that belong to these ideals in the world of men, and it gives you the possibility there of touch with the Mighty Ones whom here, however unworthily, we strive to follow. So that it is a great thing to be within it, and it means much for the future of you, if you can keep in it. For the immediate future of the Theosophical Society is the work of building that next sub-race which is to come. That is the work for which consciously it ought to be working now. In proportion as you realise it, so will be the strength of your labor; in proportion as you understand it, so should be your share in the gladder work of that happier time. For the future of the Theosophical Society is to be the mother, and even the educator, of the child sixth sub-race which already is going through its ante-natal life. That is its future, secure, inevitable; yours the choice if you will share that future or not.


Part III


The Value of Theosophy in the World of Thought

An Address on taking office as President of the Theosophical Society. Delivered at the Queen's Hall, Langham Place, London, W., on 10th July 1907

The Value of Theosophy in the World of Thought

You will have seen on the handbill announcing the lecture, that we are holding this meeting in connection with my taking office as President of the Theosophical Society, and it is my purpose, in addressing you to-night, to try to show you, at least to some small extent, what is the value which the Society represents, as regarded from the standpoint of human activities, manifested in the world of thought. I want to try to show you that when we say THEOSOPHY we are speaking of something of real value which can serve humanity in the various departments of intellectual life. I propose, in order to do this, to begin with a very brief statement of the fundamental idea of Theosophy; and then, turning to the world of religious thought, to the world of artistic thought, to the world of scientific thought, and lastly to the world of political thought, to point out to you how that which is called Theosophy may bring contributions of value to each of these in turn.

Now Theosophy, as the name implies, is a Wisdom, a Divine Wisdom; and the name historically, as many of you know, is identical with that which in Eastern lands has been known by various names--as Tao, in China; as the Brahmaviḍyâ, in India; as the Gnosis, among the Greeks and the early Christians; and as Theosophy through the Middle Ages and in modern times. It implies always a knowledge, a Wisdom that transcends the ordinary knowledge, the ordinary science of the earth; it implies a wisdom as regards life, a wisdom as regards the essential nature of things, a wisdom which is summed up in two words when we say "God-Wisdom." For it has been held in elder days--although in modern times it has become largely forgotten--that man can really never know anything at all unless he knows himself, and knows himself Divine; that knowledge of God, the Supreme, the Universal Life, is the root of all true knowledge of matter as well as of Spirit, of this world as well as of worlds other than our own; that in that one supreme knowledge all other knowledges find their root; that in that supreme light all other lights have their origin; and that if man can know anything, it is because he is Divine in nature, and, sharing the Life that expresses itself in a universe, he can know at once the Life that originates and the Matter that obeys.

Starting from such a standpoint, you will at once realise that Theosophy is a spiritual theory of the world as against a materialistic. It sees Spirit as the moulder, the shaper, the arranger of matter, and matter only as the obedient expression and servant of the Spirit; it sees in man a spiritual being, seeking to unfold his powers by experience in a universe of forms; and it declares that man misunderstands himself, and will fail of his true end, if he identifies himself with the form that perishes instead of with the life which is deathless. Hence, opposed to materialism alike in science and philosophy, it builds up a spiritual conception of the universe, and necessarily it is idealistic in its thought, and holds up the importance of the ideal as a guide to all human activity. The ideal, which is thought applied to conduct, that is the keynote of Theosophy and its value in the varied worlds of thought; and the power of thought, the might of thought, the ability that it has to clothe itself in forms whose life only depends on the continuance of the thought that gave them birth, that is its central note, or keynote, in all the remedies that it applies to human ills. Idealist everywhere, idealist in religion, idealist in art, idealist in science, idealist in the practical life that men call politics, idealist everywhere; but avoiding the blunder into which some idealists have fallen, when they have not recognised that human thought is only a portion of the whole, and not the whole. The Theosophist recognises that the Divine Thought, of which the universe is an expression, puts limitations on his own power of thought, on his own creative activity. He realises that the whole compels the part, and that his own thought can only move within the vast circle of the Divine Thought, which he only partially expresses; so that while he will maintain that, on the ideal depends all that is called "real" in the lower worlds, he will realise that his creative power can only slowly mould matter to his will, and though every result will depend on a creative thought, the results will often move slowly, adapting themselves to the thought that gives them birth. Hence, while idealist, he is not impracticable; while he sees the power of thought, he recognises its limitations in space and time; and while asserting the vital importance of right thought and right belief, he realises that only slowly does the flower of thought ripen into the fruit of action.

But on the importance of thought he lays a stress unusual in modern life. It is the cant of the day, in judging the value of a man, that "it does not matter what he believes but only what he does." That is not true. It matters infinitely what a man believes; for as a man's belief so he is; as a man's thought, so inevitably is his action. There was a time in the world of thought when it was said with equal error: "It does not matter what a man does, provided his faith is right." If that word "faith" had meant the man's thought in its integrity, then there would have been but little error; for the right thought would inevitably have brought right action; but in those days right thought meant only orthodox thought, according to a narrow canon of interpretation, the obedient repetition of creeds, the blind acceptance of beliefs imposed by authority. In those days what was called Orthodoxy in religion was made the measure of the man, and judgment depended upon orthodox acquiescence. Against that mistake the great movement that closed the Middle Ages was the protest of the intellect of man, and it was declared that no external authority must bind the intellect, and none had right to impose from outside the thought which is the very essence of the man--that great assertion of the right of private judgment, of the supreme principle of the free intelligence, so necessary for the progress of humanity. But like all things it has been followed by a reaction, and men have run to the other extreme: that nothing matters except conduct, and action alone is to be considered. But your action is the result of your thought of yesterday, and follows your yesterday as its expression in the outer world; your thought of to-day is your action of to-morrow, and your future depends on its accuracy and its truth, on its consonance with reality. Hence it is all-important in the modern world to give back to thought its right place as above action, as its inspirer and its guide. For the human spirit by its expression as intellect judges, decides, directs, controls. Its activity is the outcome of its thinking; and if without caring for thought you plunge into action, you have the constant experiments, feeble and fruitless, which so largely characterise our modern life.

Pass, then, from that first assertion of the importance of right thinking, to see what message Theosophy has for the world of religious thought. What is religion? Religion is the quenchless thirst of the human spirit for the Divine. It is the Eternal, plunged into a world of transitory phenomena, striving to realise its own eternity. It is the Immortal, flung into a world of death, trying to realise its own deathlessness. It is the white Eagle of Heaven, born in the illimitable spaces, beating its wings against the bars of matter, and striving to break them and rise into the immensities where are its birthplace and its real home. That is religion: the striving of man for God. And that thirst of man for God many have tried to quench with what is called Theology, or with books that are called sacred, traditions that are deemed holy, ceremonies and rites which are but local expressions of a universal truth. You can no more quench that thirst of the human Spirit by anything but individual experience of the Divine, than you can quench the thirst of the traveller parched and dying in the desert by letting him hear water go down the throat of another. Human experience, and that alone, is the rock on which all religion is founded, that is the rock that can never be shaken, on which every true Church must be built. Books, it is true, are often sacred; but you may tear up every sacred book in the world, and as long as man remains, and God to inspire man, new books can be written, new pages of inspiration can be penned. You may break in pieces every ceremony, however beautiful and elevating, and the Spirit that made them to express himself has not lost his artistic power, and can make new rites and new ceremonies to replace every one that is broken and cast aside. The Spirit is deathless as God is deathless, and in that deathlessness of the Spirit lies the certainty, the immortality of religion. And Theosophy, in appealing to that immortal experience, points the world of religions--confused by many an attack,