Theos-Talk Archives (May 1999 Message tl00014)

	H. P. Blavatsky -- BENEFACTOR OF THE RACE

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	"Such she ever was;  devoted to Theosophy and the Society
organized to elevate the race.  Her method was to deal with the
mind of the century as she found it, by trying to lead it on step
by step;  to seek out and educate a few who, appreciating the
majesty of the Secret Science and devoted to "the great orphan
Humanity," would carry on her work with zeal and wisdom;  to
found a Society whose efforts would inject into the thought of
the day, the ideas, the doctrines, the nomenclature of the
Wisdom-Religion.

	She worked under directors who, operating from behind the scene,
knew that the Society was, and was to be, the nucleus from which
help might spread to all the people of the day, without thanks
and without acknowledgement.  She said :  "We are not working
merely that people may call themselves "Theosophists," but that
the doctrines we cherish may affect and leaven the whole mind of
this century.  This alone can be accomplished by a small band of
workers, who work for no human reward, no earthly recognition,
but who, supported and sustained by a belief in that Universal
Brotherhood of which our Masters are a part, work steadily,
faithfully, in understanding and putting forth for consideration
the doctrines of life and duty that have come down to us from
immemorial time."

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Wrote HPB:

	"Verily the Spirit in man, so long hidden from public sight, so
carefully concealed and so far exiled from the arena of modern
learning has at last awakened.  It now asserts itself and is
loudly re-demanding its unrecognized yet ever legitimate rights.
It refuses to be any longer trampled under the brutal foot of
materialism, speculated upon by the Churches, and made a
fathomless source of income by those who have self-constituted
themselves its universal custodians.  The former would deny the
Divine Presence any right to existence;  the latter would
accentuate and prove it...But the Spirit in man -- the direct,
though now but broken ray and emanation of the Universal
Spirit -- has at last awakened.  Hitherto, while so often
reviled, persecuted and abased through ignorance, ambition and
greed;  while so frequently turned by insane Pride "into a blind
wanderer, like unto a buffoon mocked by a host of buffoons," in
the realm of Delusion, it remained unheard and unheeded.  Today,
the Spirit in man has returned like King Lear, from seeming
insanity to its senses;  and, raising its voice, it now speaks in
those authoritative tones to which the men of old have listened
in reverential silence through incalculable ages, until deafened
by the din and roar of civilization and culture, they could hear
it no longer."	H.P.B.

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	"If Theosophical doctrines are to be of any benefit to the race,
then they must be for all classes, poor and rich, cultured and
uncultured, young and old.  We appeal to all who wish to raise
themselves and their fellow creatures--man and beast--out of the
thoughtless jog-trot of selfish everyday life.  It is not thought
that Utopia can be established in a day;  but through the
spreading or the idea of Universal Brotherhood, the truth in all
things may be discovered.

	What is wanted is knowledge of the true spiritual condition of
man, his aim and destiny.
The aim and purpose of Theosophy in the world is not the
advancement of a few on the intellectual plane, but the
amelioration of all human affairs through the practice of
Brotherhood.

	The theosophical doctrines show what Brotherhood is and how it
is to be practiced.  It holds that humanity is capable of
infinite perfection both in time and quality,  the saviours and
adepts being held up as examples of that possibility.

	This is the destiny of all beings, and hence at the outset
Theosophy postulates the perfectibility of the race, removes the
idea of innate unregenerate wickedness, and offers a purpoe and
an aim for life which is consonant with the longings of the soul
and which its real nature, tending at the same time to destroy
pessimism with its companion, despair.

	In the doctrines of Theosophy are to be found the philosophical
and reasonable basis for ethics and the natural enforcement of
them in practice."  WQJ

              Dallas TenBroeck
               dalval@nwc.net