THE child who learns caring and compassion for others enhances not just her own life experience but all others around her.
If true, this suggests that the acquisition of a higher moral state could eventually change the world.
An example of this quintessential spiritual state is found in The Key to Theosophy, where Mme. Blavatsky insists that “altruism is an integral part of self-development.”
If a selfish, self-serving worldview were in fact the prevailing sentiment, then no one would ever care about starving children, the sick or elderly, or animal abuse. For such, helping to heal a stressed planet, homelessness, and poverty, would not be on their to-do list.
If life is ultimately purposeless, because we are “nothing but a pack of neurons” in the brain—then altruism would hold little importance for us. Only what we can grab for ourselves ‘now’ has any meaning.
Worldview
Materialistic worldviews are compelling in our consumerist societies. Yet it can be shown there is also a generous undercurrent of compassion in the world. If such altruistic views come to dominate our human behaviors, this will be our saving grace as a humanity.
Good News
Neuroscientists like Jordan Grafman director of brain injury research at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, are “investigating specific regions of the human brain that give rise to altruistic behavior,” (Hard-Wired for Giving).
“While we often tend to think of altruism as a kind of sophisticated moral capacity we use to squelch our urges to dominate others, this new evidence suggests that giving is actually inherently rewarding: The brain churns out a pleasurable response when we engage in it.”
Despite the daily barrage of dispiriting news headlines people do practice altruism, (see Good News Network) enough to make personal sacrifices in time and resources — even the most skeptical of us will pitch-in offering a helping hand to those in need.
Yes You Can!
“This is the inspirational story of a father, Dick Hoyt, and his son, Rick, who compete together in marathons and triathlons across the country. Team Hoyt strives to help those who are physically disabled become active members of the community. Their message: ‘Yes You Can!'”
Winning Ways
“The way to selfish bliss, is shunned by the Boddhisattvas of the ‘Secret Heart,’ the Buddhas of Compassion,” the Book of the Golden Precepts declares. Reaching the bliss of Nirvana and refusing it, the true disciple remains on Earth, as an Adept, “invisible to uninitiated mankind, to watch over and protect it.”
Such was Gautama Buddha with several of his Arhats, says the Esoteric School, “higher than whom, on account of the great renunciation and sacrifice to mankind there is none known.”
Asked how a person could achieve such an elevated compassionate state, Mme. Blavatsky’s reply focuses on four overarching principles: “the use of our higher reason, spiritual intuition and moral sense, and by following the dictates of what we call ‘the still small voice’ of our conscience
which speaks louder in us than the earthquakes and the thunders of Jehovah.”
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Theosophy Watch 
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Thanks for your comments….namaste!
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Where do Bodhisattvas live? Is there a place or a “plane” or a spiritual realm where they dwell?
Also, is Jesus a Bodhisattva?
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The Legends of Three Saviours (Isis Unveiled)
“…the three personalities of Christna, Gautama, and Jesus appeared like true gods, each in his epoch, and bequeathed to humanity three religions built on the imperishable rock of ages. That all three, especially the Christian faith, have in time become adulterated, and the latter almost unrecognizable, is no fault of either of the noble Reformers. It is the priestly self-styled husbandmen of the “vine of the Lord” who must be held to account by future generations. Purify the three systems of the dross of human dogmas, the pure essence remaining will be found identical.”
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/isis/iu2-11a.htm
Blavatsky relates that she was once in a large cave-temple in the Himalayas with her Tibetan teacher, Morya. There were many statues of adepts and, pointing to one of them, her teacher said: ‘This is he whom you call Jesus. We count him to be one of the greatest among us’ [19]. The importance of Jesus is highlighted in the following passage from Isis Unveiled 2:150-1.:
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/isis/iu2-03.htm
“…all the civilized portion of the Pagans who knew of Jesus honored him as a philosopher, an adept whom they placed on the same level with Pythagoras and Apollonius. . . . As an incarnated God there is no single record of him on this earth capable of withstanding the critical examination of science; as one of the greatest reformers, an inveterate enemy of every theological dogmatism, a persecutor of bigotry, a teacher of one of the most sublime codes of ethics, Jesus is one of the grandest and most clearly-defined figures on the panorama of human history. His age may, with every day, be receding farther and farther back into the gloomy and hazy mists of the past; and his theology – based on human fancy and supported by untenable dogmas may, nay, must with every day lose more of its unmerited prestige; alone the grand figure of the philosopher and moral reformer instead of growing paler will become with every century more pronounced and more clearly defined. It will reign supreme and universal only on that day when the whole of humanity recognizes but one father – the UNKNOWN ONE above – and one brother – the whole of mankind below.”
Voice of the Silence
(26). In the Northern Buddhist symbology, Amitabha or “Boundless Space” (Parabrahm) is said to have in his paradise two Bodhisattvas — Kwan-shi-yin and Tashishi — who ever radiate light over the three worlds where they lived, including our own (vide 27), in order to help with this light (of knowledge) in the instruction of Yogis, who will, in their turn, save men. Their exalted position in Amitabha’s realm is due to deeds of mercy performed by the two, as such Yogis, when on earth, says the allegory.
(27). These three worlds are the three planes of being, the terrestrial, astral and the spiritual.
(28). The “Guardian Wall” or the “Wall of Protection.” It is taught that the accumulated efforts of long generations of Yogis, Saints and Adepts, especially of the Nirmanakayas — have created, so to say, a wall of protection around mankind, which wall shields mankind invisibly from still worse evils.
that ethereal form which one would assume when leaving his physical he would appear in his astral body — having in addition all the knowledge of an Adept. The Bodhisattva develops it in himself as he proceeds on the Path. Having reached the goal and refused its fruition, he remains on Earth, as an Adept; and when he dies, instead of going into Nirvana, he remains in that glorious body he has woven for himself, invisible to uninitiated mankind, to watch over and protect it.
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/voice/voice3.htm
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Reblogged this on Ghost River Studios Blog.
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Thanks for the reblog, Namaste!
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