Theos-Talk Archives (October 1994 Message tl00002)

This is by Eldon Tucker

    Following are some interesting quotes from G. de Purucker,
taken from "Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy," 1st ed.

---- Theosophists and Buddhism

    [Buddhism is] "the most spiritual of all religions ...
There is no exoteric doctrine belonging to the great *ancient*
world-religions which is intrinsically false. The fact is that
the exoteric teaching *is* the truth, but it needs a key in
order to explain it; and without the key it actually can be,
and usually is, misunderstood and misinterpreted, and degraded
.."
    "Are we *Buddhists?* No. Not more so than we are
*Christians,* except perhaps in this sense, that the religious
philosophy of the Buddha-Sakyamuni is incomparably nearer to
the Ancient Wisdom, The Esoteric Philosophy. Its main fault
today is that its later teachers carried its doctrines too far
along merely formal or exoteric lines; and yet with all that,
and to this day, it remains the purest and holiest of the
exoteric religions on earth, and its teachings even
exoterically are true. They need but the esoteric key in
interpretation of them. As a matter of fact, the same may be
said of all the great ancient World-religions. Christianity,
Brahmanism, and others, all have the same exoteric Wisdom
behind the outward veil of the exoteric formal faith." (p.
190)
    [There are] "three grades of member of the Theosophical
Movement. First, the members of the Theosophical Society, who
are neither Theosophists nor Occultists necessarily, but who
are those who so greatly admire our broad and universal
platform, who are so much in sympathy with the ideal which
Theosophy sets forth, that they have thrown in their low with
us, and work with us. The second class comprises the
Theosophists, that is to say, those who are more than mere
members of the Theosophical Society; they are those who study
the particular and certain doctrines which in our time have
ben called Theosophical, and which represent the 'Eye-
Doctrine,' ... the publication for the public weal of certain
chosen and specified doctrines of Occultism, fit for public
dissemination in our age. Lastly, the third class is
ourselves, those who belong to our own hold Order, who have
given themselves in a larger, in a deeper, and in a more
heartful degree than the other two classes of us have done, to
that sublime Wisdom." (p. 430)
    "We are the outmost rank or ring of that Buddhist
Hierarchy of Compassion ... we may become faithful
transmitters and manifestors of the divine streams from that
supernal source. When we can transmit these in their native
crystalline purity, when our minds become transmitters so
limpid and clear, so high in their aspirations and so
unadulterate in their natures that we can consciously receive
and pass on these life-giving streams, the streams of
understanding from the fountain of the Universal Life, then
indeed we are saviors of men." (p. 536)
    "Occultism is the exposition of the essence of life, of
the essence of being, and of the essence of living. Let us
never confuse it with the so-called 'occult arts,' arts which
are strictly forbidden to us as students of this School. The
Brothers of the Shadow lead on their helpless victims with the
occult arts, enticing them thereby, and their end is non-
entity. But our Masters, our Teachers, have told us plainly:
first learn discipline, first learn the Law. Then the powers
which you may crave, you will crave only as spiritual powers,
and only to give yourself and them to others. In the Path, our
Path, the so-called 'occult arts' drop away even from the
imagination, because their deluding enticements and their
allurements are clearly seen." (p. 326)
    "As said to us so many times, the two paths lie always at
our feet; at every step they diverge, one to the right and one
to the left; and one single act may induce a habit, which will
make a character, in time, by repetition; and that character
is you or I, for it is the exercise of knowledge (or half-
knowledge) and will." (p. 432)
    "It is for these reasons that our beloved Teacher"
[Katherine Tingley] "has instructed me time and again to refer
to the necessity of understanding clearly what we mean by
morals, and that there is the utmost need for their practice
by each one of us, by you and by me, every moment of our
lives." (p. 432)