Theos-Talk Archives (March 1996 Message tl00006)

KEY16.TXT
Text supplied by Eldon Tucker
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The Abstract and the Concrete

Q. Please elucidate this difference a little more.

A. The Society is a great body of men and women, composed of the
most heterogeneous elements. Theosophy, in its abstract meaning,
is Divine Wisdom, or the aggregate of the knowledge and wisdom
that underlie the Universe, the homogeneity of eternal GOOD; and
in its concrete sense it is the sum total of the same as allotted
to man by nature, on this earth, and no more. Some members
earnestly endeavor to realize and, so to speak, to objectivize
Theosophy in their lives; while others desire only to know of,
not to practice it; and others still may have joined the Society
merely out of curiosity, or a passing interest, or perhaps,
again, because some of their friends belong to it. How, then,
can the system be judged by the standard of those who would
assume the name without any right to it? Is poetry or its muse
to be measured only by those would-be poets who afflict our
ears? The Society can be regarded as the embodiment of Theosophy
only in its abstract motives; it can never presume to call
itself its concrete vehicle so long as human imperfections and
weaknesses are all represented in its body; otherwise the
Society would be only repeating the great error and the
outflowing sacrilege of the so-called Churches of Christ. If
Eastern comparisons may be permitted, Theosophy is the shoreless
ocean of universal truth, love, and wisdom, reflecting its
radiance on the earth, while the Theosophical Society is only a
visible bubble on that reflection. Theosophy is divine nature,
visible and invisible, and its Society human nature trying to
ascend to its divine parent. Theosophy, finally, is the fixed
eternal sun, and its Society the evanescent comet trying to
settle in an orbit to become a planet, ever revolving within the
attraction of the sun of truth. It was formed to assist in
showing to men that such a thing as Theosophy exists, and to
help them to ascend towards it by studying and assimilating its
eternal verities.

Q. I thought you said you had no tenets or doctrines of your
own?

A. No more we have. The Society has no wisdom of its own to
support or teach. It is simply the storehouse of all the truths
uttered by the great seers, initiates, and prophets of historic
and even prehistoric ages; at least, as many as it can get.
Therefore, it is merely the channel through which more or less
of truth, found in the accumulated utterances of humanity's
great teachers, is poured out into the world.

Q. But is such truth unreachable outside of the society? Does
not every Church claim the same?

A. Not at all. The undeniable existence of great initiates, true
"Sons of God", shows that such wisdom was often reached by
isolated individuals, never, however, without the guidance of a
master at first. But most of the followers of such, when they
became masters in their turn, have dwarfed the Catholicism of
these teachings into the narrow groove of their own sectarian
dogmas. The commandments of a chosen master alone were then
adopted and followed, to the exclusion of all others, if followed
at all, note well, as in the case of the Sermon on the Mount.
Each religion is thus a bit of the divine truth, made to focus a
vast panorama of human fancy which claimed to represent and
replace that truth.

Q. But Theosophy, you say, is not a religion?

A. Most assuredly it is not, since it is the essence of all
religion and of absolute truth, a drop of which only underlies
every creed. To resort once more to metaphor. Theosophy, on
earth, is like the white ray of the spectrum, and every religion
only one of the seven prismatic colors. Ignoring all the others,
and cursing them as false, every special colored ray claims not
only priority, but to be that white ray itself, and
anathematizes even its own tints from light to dark, as
heresies. Yet, as the sun of truth rises higher and higher on
the horizon of man's perception, and each colored ray gradually
fades out until it is finally reabsorbed in its turn, humanity
will at last be cursed no longer with artificial polarizations,
but will find itself bathing in the pure colorless sunlight of
eternal truth. And this will be Theosophia.

Q. Your claim is, then, that all the great religions are derived
from Theosophy, and that it is by assimilating it that the world
will be finally saved from the curse of its great illusions and
errors?

A. Precisely so. And we add that our Theosophical Society is the
humble seed which, if watered and left to live, will finally
produce the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil which is grafted
on the Tree of Life Eternal. For it is only by studying the
various great religions and philosophies of humanity, by
comparing them dispassionately and with an unbiased mind, that
men can hope to arrive at the truth. It is especially by finding
out and noting their various points of agreement that we may
achieve this result. For no sooner do we arrive, either by study,
or by being taught by someone who knows, at their inner meaning,
than we find, almost in every case, that it expresses some great
truth in Nature.

Q. We have heard of a Golden Age that was, and what you describe
would be a Golden Age to be realized at some future day. When
shall it be?

A. Not before humanity, as a whole, feels the need of it. A
maxim in the Persian Javidan Khirad says:

Truth is of two kinds, one manifest and self-evident; the other
demanding incessantly new demonstrations and proofs.

It is only when this latter kind of truth becomes as universally
obvious as it is now dim, and therefore liable to be distorted
by sophistry and casuistry; it is only when the two kinds will
have become once more one, that all people will be brought to
see alike.

Q. But surely those few who have felt the need of such truths
must have made up their minds to believe in something definite?
You tell me that, the Society having no doctrines of its own,
every member may believe as he chooses and accept what he
pleases. This looks as if the Theosophical Society was bent upon
reviving the confusion of languages and beliefs of the Tower of
Babel of old. Have you no beliefs in common?

A. What is meant by the Society having no tenets or doctrines of
its own is, that no special doctrines or beliefs are obligatory
on its members; but, of course, this applies only to the body as
a whole. The Society, as you were told, is divided into an outer
and an inner body. Those who belong to the latter have, of
course, a philosophy, or, if you so prefer it, a religious system
of their own.

Q. May we be told what it is?

A. We make no secret of it. It was outlined a few years ago in
The Theosophist and Esoteric Buddhism, and may be found still
more elaborated in The Secret Doctrine. It is based on the
oldest philosophy of the world, called the Wisdom-Religion or
the Archaic Doctrine. If you like, you may ask questions and
have them explained.

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