WHAT IS THEOSOPHY?

[From WIND OF THE SPIRIT, pages 336-42, based upon a talk given
in Copenhagen, Denmark on September 17, 1937.]

This is the first time I have had the pleasure of addressing a

Danish audience. I have heard that you already know something
about Theosophy, and that is exceedingly good, but I venture to
say that when minds come into an approach of the study of the
god-wisdom that we call Theosophy, there is always something new
to learn, something to get that will give comfort to the heart,
more light to the mind.

If I were to ask you as individuals "What is Theosophy," do you

think that anyone in this auditorium could give me a
comprehensive answer? Could you tell me where it comes from, what
it is, and what its objectives are? Could you tell me what we
Theosophists are trying to do? I do not think so. And it is
along these lines of thought that I will make my brief address to
you tonight.

Now then, in the first place, Theosophy is a word that of course

comes from the Greek, "he Theosophia," to which we Theosophists
love to add the adjective "ourania," the divine god-wisdom of the
universe. This is no revelation granted unto men by an
extra-cosmic power that men in reverence call God. It is wisdom
concerning the Universe, its structure, nature, characteristics,
laws, origin, and destiny. It was originally given unto the
first human beings on this earth by divine entities coming unto
infant humanity from other spheres in order to instruct these
human children of the universe in the laws of right doing, right
thinking, and therefore right and beautiful destiny.

Theosophy is not so much the wisdom of God, as it has been

translated sometimes, as it is divine wisdom, god-wisdom,
invented by no man, given to us by spiritual beings, and of which
god-wisdom every great seer and sage in ancient times has been
the voice to his age. These great men -- Buddhas or Avatars or
Christs, call them by what name we will or may -- have been some
of these sages and seers who have spoken to the children of men
in language that they could easily understand, giving to them a
divine philosophy of life, telling them what life is, explaining
it, pointing out what the Universe is, pointing out likewise that
we men and women are children of this wondrous universe that
surrounds us, and therefore that there is no separation between
all that is and us human beings.

You see what this means? It means that we are given ethics,
morals, an ethical system based on the very divine heart of the
universe, which as I have said in the West men with reverence
call "God," but of which all the ancient sages and seers spoke,
not in terms of names, but as the ancient sages of Hindustan
described it, simply THAT -- TAT. So high a reverence had they
for this divine heart of things, this divine heart of harmony, of
infinite love and compassion, of cosmic intelligence, that they
gave it no descriptive name such as men give to things, but
simply said THAT. From THAT we come, back to THAT we go. We
come out from IT again and are reborn as men to learn new lessons
in life; to undo the mistakes of the past, to strengthen our
characters; and thus as the ages go by, and we reincarnate time
after time, we grow in wisdom and strength and character, our
hearts expanding with love for all that is, and for our
fellow-men, and our minds enlarging with what we learn -- the
knowledge that is stored within what men in the West call the
Soul, but that we Theosophists prefer to call the Reincarnating
Ego -- two names for the same thing if you will.

When a man feels and knows, because of a philosophy of life that

satisfies his intellect and purifies his heart, that he and his
brother men and the Universe around us are all parts of one
cosmic organic entity, an organism, a living being, which we call
the Universe, then he has a basis for ethics that is scientific,
philosophic, purely religious, that is, religion per se, not any
one religion changed by men, modified by men, however good, but
the Religion of the human spirit that seeks its home with
divinity -- therefore, the religion of intuition, of the human
divine spark, which makes us all that is best in us. You see
also that this gives us a firm basis for philosophy, for we start
from a unity that the mind can understand, and the heart with its
tender instincts can grasp.

The truth that man and all Being are one, one in essence,
apparently separated only in bodies: this is ethics; for
instantly we see that when a man injures his brother, he injures
himself likewise, for he injures the cosmic harmony, the cosmic
unity. We see likewise in this wonderful verity, the fundamental
unity of all beings and things, and that men are but inseparable
portions of the infinite universe: a true basis for scientific
thinking, for here we start from a fundamental postulate that all
sane men must accept; for if man is different from the universe,
then will someone please explain how it is that he is subject to
its laws, and formed of the stuff of the universe?

Any other postulate is impossible. Whatever is in the universe

is in the man, in me, in you. Conversely, whatever is in the man
is in the Universe. I have thought, I have conscience, I have
intuition, I have feeling. Because they are here in the part,
shall the whole have them not? The fact that the part has these,
proves that the universe has them; for show me something that
does not contain what a part of it contains? That is foolishness.

Deduction from this wondrous teaching of Theosophy: It means that

the Universe is conscious, conscious, of course, in infinite and
varying degrees, but conscious; for from that consciousness of
the universe we draw our consciousness. The whole gives to the
parts. Because the man has consciousness, the ethical sense,
therefore the universe is ethical, has what we men call
consciousness. Is it possible that the part should have
something that the All, the Whole, has not? Of course not.

These are some of the simplest teachings of Theosophy, given to

us as I have already stated by spiritual beings ages and ages
agone, given to the first human thinkers on our globe by
spiritual beings from other spheres. Out of this primeval
revelation of truth to men, were born as the ages passed, out of
the Schools of the Mysteries, the different great philosophies
and religions of the world -- each one founded by some great sage
and seer, like Jesus the Christ, Gautama the Buddha, Lao-tse in
China, Krishna the Avatar, Shankaracharya the Avatar, and similar
great ones in other lands, in other times. Each one spoke from
the wisdom of the esoteric sanctuary, that great School of Wisdom
of the Mysteries that exists today and has its branches in
certain of the countries of the world.

The greatest one of these Schools is at present in a little known

district of Asia, and we Theosophists in reverence refer to it as
Shambhala, which is a Sanskrit name. There still beats the
sacred heart of all mankind, so to speak, for there still live
(and they teach their chosen pupils or chelas) the noblest
spiritual intellects that the human race has ever known. We call
them Masters of Wisdom, men of Christ-like life, of Buddha-like
life, of Buddha- and Christ-like wisdom. They have their pupils,
and from time to time one of these pupils is sent forth into the
world as an envoy to teach men once again the age-old doctrine of
the god-wisdom, of the "theosophia ourania," the divine, the
starry wisdom of the gods.

Such an envoy was H.P. Blavatsky, and the teaching that she
brought came directly from that Sanctuary, the Holy of Holies,
the Sanctum Sanctorum of the human race that we Theosophists call
Shambala; and the message that she brought she called Theosophy.
It is not new. It is as old as man is. As I have told you, it
was given to the earliest men by these spiritual beings from
other spheres. In different ages, it is called by different
names. But the names are simply tickets placed over the Reality.
The Wisdom is one; merely the terms by which it is given to men
in different ages change.

Furthermore, and this I think is a very important point, dear

friends, if you care to study, if you are really interested in
finding out that the statements that I have made to you tonight
are true statements, then investigate for yourselves. Study,
study the ancient religious and philosophical books of the world,
from all countries; and beneath and behind the words and the
terms, look for the body of ideas, the essential teachings. You
will find them identical everywhere. This is Theosophy as taught
today, as taught a million years agone in the past, as will be
taught a million years in the future, as it is taught on planets
other than our own circling around our own sun, as it is taught
on the planets whirling in their orbits around other suns in
cosmic space in the galaxy. Why? Because truth is truth, and
what is true on our planet Terra is true on Jupiter and Venus, on
Stella Polaris, on Canopus and Sirius, anywhere. That is
Theosophy.

Now, in the Theosophical Society, dear friends, we have no

dogmas, we have no creeds. We have a marvelous system of wisdom
teaching, the wisdom of the gods, Theosophy. But at this
fountain of wisdom, from these doctrines, every Theosophical
student takes what he or she can assimilate, can understand, is
capable of receiving. Some men can receive some; other men can
receive more. Other men can receive still more.

We have no dogmas. We have no creeds. We have no set forms of

belief. Yet, I do think -- and I speak with reverence for the
good people in the West who call themselves Christians -- that
there is no more religious man on earth than the true
Theosophist. I think there is no more truly scientific thinker
on earth than the Theosophist. I think there is no more
philosophical mind on earth than that of the Theosophist. And
you see the reason why. We have no creeds, we have no dogmas,
and our consciences are free as the winds of heaven. We are
searchers for truth, hungering for it, and we have found where we
may find it. And we have learned this wonderful truth: that
before a man can take the wisdom of the gods, he has to train his
life to be ethical, moral.

It is one of the saddest things in the world that the West has
largely lost its ethical sense largely. The reason is obvious.
Science has destroyed the religion of former days, so that today
the Christian religionist must believe almost against the
convictions of his mind, and therefore his nature is rent in
twain, and that must mean suffering. And on the other hand, our
science, wonderful as it is, is expanding and growing greater and
grander every day, so that today scientific men are actually
becoming Theosophists.

Does science offer us anything upon which we can lean, rest, and
feel assured that upon this ground we stand in permanence? No,
for it changes from day to day, from year to year, and this is
its basis. The scientists say that the greatest thing about
scientific research is that it is growing; and it is so, and that
is very fine. But can you find the truths of the Universe in
something that is not even a system of thought, but is merely a
growing and expanding understanding of the physical world around
us? Obviously not. It does not teach us ethics. It does not
satisfy that strong, tender religious instinct of the human
heart, that man is the same as the cosmic spirit. It does not
fully satisfy the inquiries of a man's mind; because as soon as
we begin to study scientific doctrine, the first thing we find is
that it is continually changing, so that what was scientific
dogma to our fathers, today is discarded.

What is scientific truth today, five years from now will be past
scientific history, old scientific books no longer studied. We
shall have advanced beyond that! Do you see? And the consequence:
religion today teaches an ethic of words, but gives you no proof
that ethics are based on the universe itself. Science gives us
no foundation for morals, for it does not understand them.
Morals, the scientists say, are not within their sphere.

Philosophy? Philosophy in the West is but an infant, striving and

struggling to attain a greater light, but an infant; and all the
philosophical speculations of Western philosophy are but groping,
blind groping after light. Pathetic!

So, with our god-wisdom, having no creeds and no dogmas, in

addition to being searchers for truth, philalethians, we are
likewise philanthropists in the
lovers of our fellowmen, lovers
a wondrous mystery in a flower,
star, looking into the eye of a
there, or, it may be, a hell.
Greek sense of this word. We are
of the universe around us, seeing
sensing a religious doctrine in a
fellow human being, seeing heaven

What are the objectives of the Theosophical Society? First of

all, I should think to give unto men these wondrous doctrines of
our god-wisdom. Next, to keep alive in men their spiritual
intuitions. Note these words: their spiritual intuitions --
something that the West has forgotten the existence of, just as
it has forgotten the sanctions of ethics; and just as the West
thinks that ethics are mere conventions keeping us out of the
police courts and out of jails, so the West today thinks that the
intuitions of the human soul are too dangerous, too vague, to
trust to.

Theosophy tells you on the contrary that there is a way of

cultivating the intuition of the human soul, so that it becomes a
powerful factor in our lives, so that by cultivating this
intuition, this intuitive perception of truth, this inner vision,
we gain wisdom ourselves.

We do not have to go to the books of other men, we do not have to

go and learn from others. We sense our oneness with divinity.
Although we have Masters and Teachers and revere these, no
Theosophist accepts any doctrine that is contrary to his
conscience, and yet withal our god-wisdom likewise teaches us to
revere the lives and teachings of the greatest spiritual
intellects that the world has known, for we recognize as well as
are taught that these have derived from wisdom, from divinity.
Hence, the teachings and the great books of these wise men of the
past -- as will be the case in the future -- are wonderful
torches of light to guide us on our pathway. Thus, we revere the
wisdom of the past, but realize that the understanding of it must
come from the development of our own powers and faculties within.

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WILL AND WISH

By J.D. Beresford

[From THE ARYAN PATH, October 1934, pages 629-33.]

Anyone who continually turns his attention to seeking the

manifestations of the spirit through matter will inevitably meet
with indications that may be made the basis of a broad
generalization. Ultimately such generalizations will fail,
giving place before a deeper understanding of the mysteries. But
on this temporal, spatial plane of being the recognition of these
relative truths as embracing symbols, serves a practical and
instructive purpose.

That this should be so is an inevitable deduction from the simple

premise that spirit is the only reality, an immanent,
transcendent unity that cannot be directly apprehended by the
intellect, but whose existence may be inferred as the single
cause of all material phenomena. From that premise we must draw
the inevitable inference that however diverse may be the
phenomena, they must exhibit some points of likeness since all of
them are representations of the same molding force proceeding
from spirit through life and consciousness. Our search for unity
must be prosecuted by way of tortuous and perplexing paths, and
in the earlier stages of the ardent ascent, we are warranted in
accepting indications that serve to point a direction, even if
they must finally be left behind us. And one such indication has
recently forced itself upon my attention in the guise of a
differentiation between will and wish.

Now like all abstract terms carrying a significance of which we

grasp only the more superficial aspects, these two words are very
loosely used in ordinary speech. They are, indeed, sometimes
accepted as practically synonymous. Wherefore I propose in the
first place to indicate as clearly as possible the definition I
must impose upon them in what follows, beginning with "will" as
being the more intellectual concept.

It is obvious, in the first place, that "will" is only a

derivative of "wish." Will is a function of the mind consciously
exercised for a definite and clearly visualized purpose. It may
be creative or merely resistant, the former being the more
productive, the latter the more circumscribing form. But in
either aspect, its general effect is produced by the deliberate
inhibition of those sides of the personality that are recognized
as offering obstruction to the achievement of the desired
purpose. To take an extreme case, a man greatly ambitious of
worldly success will inhibit all those tendencies the expression
of which would handicap him in the achievement of his career, no
matter whether those tendencies are representative of natural
affection, conformation to an accepted code of ethics, or such
bodily desires as those for the common satisfaction of the senses
by eating, drinking, sexual indulgence, or even relaxation of
effort. The direction of all such inhibitions is towards a kind
of asceticism attained by the dominating power of the reason.
Whatever part wish may have played in the conception of the
original purpose, it is not the chief instrument by which such
purpose will be attained. The mind is in supreme control; and of
the many wishes that will necessarily come into consciousness,
only one is accepted and the remainder rejected. Wherefore
"will" as here defined is a function of the conscious mind, the
agent of reason.

"Wish" is a far more subtle essence, and assumes a multitude of

disguises. It is closely allied with consciousness, not only
that of which we are aware, but also of that consciousness that
derive from other bodily centers, of which we have little or no
personal realization. And this generative impulse may either use
the reason or subdue it, since it represents not a function of
the mind but of the personality. Thus it may support the will's
control, as in the example cited above, or may undermine it. In
any case, "wish" is always primary and "will" secondary. We do
not will that for which we have no desire. As the old Hermetists
say, "Behind will stands desire."
The difference in action of these two forces has been very
clearly illuminated for me, recently, in the study I have been
making of mental healing. It is a commonplace that mind has
control of the body, but that is a very misleading statement.
Mind in its relation with will has, in fact, exceedingly limited
powers over the functions and almost none over the organs of the
body. As a subject for faith or mental healing, the man of
considerable intellect and determination is an almost hopeless
case. Reason is necessarily a fallible guide in almost any
connection, and when we are dealing with matters of the spirit,
which has been assumed as inhabiting every cell of the body, the
highest intelligence is hopelessly inefficient. Indeed, it may
be laid down almost as an axiom, founded not only upon inner
knowledge but upon observed and recorded fact, that a faith held
only by the conscious mind can never work any of those "miracles"
of healing, which are being so frequently performed in the West
at the present time.

Perhaps the chief reason for this is that such a faith, whether
religious or not, involves an element of contradiction, since it
is not shared by the other components of the personality.
Consequently, these unincluded elements must be sternly inhibited
by an act of will, an act that stimulates opposition in the
repressed desires and produces a separation of the personality.
And as it is only by winning the cooperation of the subconscious
that any remarkable cure can be obtained, the purely intellectual
faith that cannot admit such cooperation offers an almost
insuperable bar to the healer.

On the other hand, "wish," if it were pure in origin, works not

by opposing other elements of the personality but by absorbing
them, and thus, reinforced and single, it will find expression.
Reason and will cannot stand for a moment before this alliance.
We see aspects of the working of this principle in obsession and
religious conversion. In the former case, the wish is not "pure
in origin," and does not represent the whole personality,
achieving manifestation because the intelligence and will are
comparatively feeble. In the second case, the subliminal uprush
is often due to earlier repressions by the will, and rarely flows
from the true fount of wisdom.

To define that source would take me beyond the scope of Western

psychology, but I have, personally, no shadow of doubt that it is
to be found in the true ego, the experienced individual spirit
that becomes all-powerful by development, although it finds so
weak an expression in the average European of today.
Nevertheless, we can make an application of the principle
involved, in relation to an object so impure in origin as success
in business. This can never be an expression of the whole
personality, even as it is known to the psychologist. The
"unconscious," (I use the word as commonly understood in
psychoanalysis), cannot be interested in success of this kind.
That strange, suggestible entity, Maeterlinck's "Unknown Guest,"
can be induced to collaborate for some purposes but not for
others; and it knows nothing of, and cannot be educated in, the
technique of moneymaking. (See in this connection Jung's
masterly analysis of the Chinese Tao in THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN
FLOWER.) This is not to say that this assumed "unconscious mind"
exhibits a general ethical tendency. We find in it the sexual,
unsocial, and feral desires that spring from the lower centers.
It is sometimes regarded as a wild beast that must be tamed by
cage and whip. But it does not, and cannot be made to,
understand the language of worldly ambition.

Now the wider application I have been seeking from these

comparatively simple deductions is to the two most easily
recognizable ways of Yoga. I speak of them as two only, because
although the methods employed may subdivide them so that they
follow recognizably different paths, fundamentally they fall into
those two categories that I have here headed -- Will and Wish.

The first works by way of the mind. The impulse to development,

as I have assumed above, necessarily lies deeper than the
intelligence, but the expression of that impulse is sought by the
mastery of the mind over the body. This is the common way of the
Fakir, as it was, also, of the medieval ascetic. By the steady
development of the power of thought, through meditation and
intense concentration, every desire of the body is subdued and
ultimately killed. Usually this is done by way of self-torture
of a purely physical order, and the whole training is rigidly
anti-social. There need be no hate for humanity as a whole,
there may be a relative tolerance, but the Yogi of this order
seeks his development within the microcosm of his own being, and
makes no contact with the crowd. His purpose is self-development
and he may attain it in a very high degree.

This form of Yoga is utterly beyond the powers of the

contemporary European. A variation of it, known as "The Fourth
Way," has found a few disciples, but its methods are handicapped
on the one hand by the need for ordinary contacts with the world,
and on the other by the indifference to that world, which the
disciple is taught to practice. Within my experience, no
follower of this "Fourth Way" has attained any such abilities as
the power to separate his consciousness from his living body. On
a more primitive, less effective plane, the businessman of my
earlier instance may be said to practice this form of Yoga, when
he sets his mind to the achievement of worldly success by denying
the lure of the senses.

Self-development by wish is of an entirely different order and

leads to a different goal. The soul-wish in this case is
generated by love and compassion, and if it is to be kept pure,
these qualities must be spent on the antithetic desires arising
from the lower centers not less than on humanity at large. A man
cannot love God unless he first loves his neighbor, and how shall
he love his neighbor if he despise himself? The means to the
purification of the desires, therefore, must not in this case be
by the cage and the whip. The single aim of him who practices
this form of Yoga is the unification of the self. And since
unification can never be attained in this or other connections by
tyranny, he must win it by the realization, education, and
conversion (sublimation) of the various consciousnesses arising
from the lower centers. In this task, the disciple has but one
steady hold-fast, the power of the generative wish. If it were
urgent enough, it will gradually take complete control,
influencing the antithetic desires until they assume the same
direction as the dominant wish and are ultimately absorbed by it.

Lastly, in this connection, it should be clearly realized that

the ideals of these two forms of Yoga are completely opposed. In
the former case, the ideal is that of the development and
magnification of the self by separation. In the latter case, the
ideal is selflessness, and just as we desire that the lower
selves should become merged in the higher, so also the ultimate
aim is the mergence of that higher self into the universal.

I have not attempted so far to indicate that of these

alternatives should be preferred by the followers of the way, but
the final implication of the last paragraph should be sufficient.
Very great powers may be attained by those who follow the
direction of will, but at the last these separated souls will be
those who come to the "feast without the wedding garment" of
love, and through a further immense cycle, they will have to
re-tread the path that leads to the Great Sacrifice.

In conclusion, it must be said that the way of "wish" is more

consonant with the ethical and humanitarian tendencies of the
European than that of "will." The latter very seldom derives in
contemporary civilization from a purely religious desire, but
rather from the wish for a far more personal gratification; and
even so, its exercise is crude and uninformed. But although the
second path is more acceptable to the average civilized man and
woman, since it is essentially social in its practice, the
winning of unity within the self by this means, involving as it
does the sacrifice of wealth and of all personal ambitions save
this ideal of integrity, involves a discipline no easier to
follow than that of self-mastery by the exercise of the will.