Hieronymus Bosch “Ascent of the Blessed”
THE new age movement heralded by Theosophy in the late 19th century, is at last bearing meaningful fruit here at the opening of the 21st.
“Theosophy is indeed the life, the indwelling spirit which makes every true reform a vital reality,” wrote the New Age’s original spokesperson, the inspirational and controvercial H. P. Blavatsky.
She sets the keynote of the Movement thus:
“Theosophy is Universal Brotherhood, the very foundation as well as the keystone of all movements toward the amelioration of our condition.”
“Fear kills the will and stays all action,” she declares in The Voice of the Silence. And, if lacking in the Shila virtue — [Shila, the key of Harmony in word and act, the key that counterbalances the cause and the effect, and leaves no further room for Karmic action] — “the pilgrim trips, and Karmic pebbles bruise his feet along the rocky path.”
“The Ethics of Theosophy are more important than any divulgement of psychic laws and facts,” she explained. “The Ethics sink into and take hold of the real man — the reincarnating Ego. We are outwardly creatures of but a day; within we are eternal.”
Blavatsky concluded: “Learn, then, well the doctrines of Karma and Reincarnation, and teach, practice, promulgate that system of life and thought which alone can save the coming races.”
What might be the practical value of these ancient doctrines today? Perhaps the primary importance lies in the assertion of our human-spiritual duality, i.e. the co-existance of awakened material (or psychic) and spiritual (noetic) entities in us.
“‘We [assert] the existence of a higher or permanent Ego in us,” Blavatsky insisted.
“In the thoughts of [this Ego] or the immortal ‘Individuality,’ the pictures and visions of the Past and Future are as the Present.”
Further she asserts, (in stenographically preserved dialogues with her students): “nor are his thoughts like ours, subjective pictures in our cerebration, but living acts and deeds, present actualities. … they are realities.”
Theosophy Watch 