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A Solitary Ascetic Is A Symbol Of The Most Cowardly Egotism; A Hermit Who Flees From His Brothers Instead Of Helping Them To Carry The Burden Of Life, To Work For Others, And To Put Their Shoulders To The Wheel Of Social Life, Is A Coward Who Hides Himself When The Battle Is On, And Goes To Sleep Drunk On An Opiate.

-H. P. Blavatsky

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A Solitary Ascetic Is

H. P. Blavatsky

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A Solitary Ascetic Is A Symbol Of The Most Cowardly Egotism; A Hermit Who Flees From His Brothers Instead Of Helping Them To Carry The Burden Of Life, To Work For Others, And To Put Their Shoulders To The Wheel Of Social Life, Is A Coward Who Hides Himself When The Battle Is On, And Goes To Sleep Drunk On An Opiate.

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Burdens Of Life

More From H. P. Blavatsky

Donkeys Have The Courage To Bray After The Death Of A Lion. (not Meant To Glorify Carnivorous Practice).

To Act And Act Wisely When The Time For Action Comes, To Wait And Wait Patiently When It Is Time For Repose, Put Man In Accord With The Rising And Falling Tides (of Affairs). So That With Nature And Law At His Back, And Truth And Beneficence As His Beacon Light, He May Accomplish Wonders. Ignorance Of This Law Results In Periods Of Unreasoning Enthusiasm On The One Hand, And Depression On The Other. Man Thus Becomes The Victim Of The Tides When He Should Be Their Master.

It Is On The Acceptance Or Rejection Of The Theory Of The Unity Of All In Nature, In Its Ultimate Essence, That Mainly Rests The Belief Or Unbelief In The Existence Around Us Of Other Conscious Beings Besides The Spirits Of The Dead.

Hast Thou Attuned Thyself To The Suffering Of Humanity, O Candidate For Light?

Ridicule Is The Deadliest Weapon Of The Age.

It Is, Then, By Those Shadows Of The Hoary Past And Their Fantastic Silhouettes On The External Screen Of Every Religion And Philosophy, That We Can, By Checking Them As We Go Along, And Comparing Them, Trace Out Finally The Body That Produced Them.

Nothing Of That Which Is Conducive To Help Man, Collectively Or Individually, To Live Not "happily" But Less Unhappily In This World, Ought To Be Indifferent To The Theosophist-occultist. It Is No Concern Of His Whether His Help Benefits A Man In His Worldly Or Spiritual Progress; His First Duty Is To Be Ever Ready To Help If He Can, Without Stopping To Philosophize.

And Now It Stands Proven That Satan, Or The Red Fiery Dragon, The 'lord Of Phosphorus,' And Lucifer, Or 'light-bearer,' Is In Us: It Is Our Mind

Civilization May Progress, Human Nature Will Remain The Same Throughout All Ages.

Matter Is Spirit At Its Lowest Level. Spirit Is Matter At Its Highest Level.

Theosophy, On Earth, Is Like The White Ray Of The Spectrum, And Each Religion Only One Of The Seven Colours.

The Occultists, However, Know That The Traditions Of Esoteric Philosophy Must Be The Right Ones, Simply Because They Are The Most Logical, And Reconcile Every Difficulty.

People Keep Repeating That The Main Things Are Love And Compassion. Certainly Love And Compassion Are The Main Things, But It Takes Knowledge To Make Love And Compassion Fruitful. ... It Takes Just A Second To Say 'love'. But To Acquire Knowledge For The Well-being And Blessing Of Humanity Requires An Eternity.

The Secret Doctrine Is The Common Property Of The Countless Millions Of Men Born Under Various Climates, In Times With Which History Refuses To Deal, And To Which Esoteric Teachings Assign Dates Incompatible With The Theories Of Geology And Anthropology.

Little Do The Devout Worshippers Of The Vatican Suspect, When They Lift Up Their Eyes In Mute Adoration Upon The Head Of Their God On Earth, The Pope, That What They Admire, Is After All, But The Caricatured Head-dress, The Amazon-like Helmet Of Pallas Athene, The Heathen Goddess Minerva! In Fact, There Is Scarcely A Rite Or Ceremony Of The Christian Church That Does Not Descend From Occultism.

Do Not Be Afraid Of Your Difficulties.do Not Wish You Could Be In Other Circumstances Than You Are. For When You Have Made The Best Of An Adversity, It Becomes The Stepping Stone To A Splendid Opportunity.

Be Humble, If Thou Would'st Attain To Wisdom. Be Humbler Still, When Wisdom Thou Hast Mastered.

Prepare, And Be Forewarned In Time. If Thou Hast Tried And Failed, O Dauntless Fighter, Yet Lose Not Courage: Fight On, And To The Charge Return Again And Yet Again... Remember, Thou That Fightest For Man's Liberation, Each Failure Is Success, And Each Sincere Attempt Wins Its Rewards In Time.

Patience Leads To Power; But Eagerness In Greed Leads To Loss.

Who Is The Great Man? He Who Is Strongest In Patience. He Who Patiently Endures Injury, And Maintains A Blameless Life--he Is A Man Indeed!

The Chief Difficulty Which Prevents Men Of Science From Believing In Divine As Well As In Nature Spirits Is Their Materialism.

Theosophy Is Who Theosophy Does, Not Thinks, Not Studies, Not Feels But Does.

But The First Differentiation Of Its Reflection In The Manifested World Is Purely Spiritual, And The Beings Generated In It Are Not Endowed With A Consciousness That Has Any Relation To The One We Conceive Of.

But - Drive Out Prejudice With A Pitch-fork It Will Ever Return.

The World Is Not Prepared Yet To Understand The Philosophy Of Occult Sciences - Let Them Assure Themselves First Of All That There Are Beings In An Invisible World, Whether 'spirits' Of The Dead Or Elementals; And That There Are Hidden Powers In Man, Which Are Capable Of Making A God Of Him On Earth.

There Is No [...] Higher Than The Truth.

The Universe Is The Periodical Manifestation Of This Unknown Absolute Essence.

It Is An Occult Law Moreover, That No Man Can Rise Superior To His Individual Failings Without Lifting, Be It Ever So Little, The Whole Body Of Which He Is An Integral Part. In The Same Way No One Can Sin, Nor Suffer The Effects Of Sin, Alone. In Reality, There Is No Such Thing As 'separateness' And The Nearest Approach To That Selfish State Which The Laws Of Life Permit Is In The Intent Or Motive.

Spiritualism Is But A Baby Now, An Unwelcome Stranger, Whom Public Opinion, Like An Unnatural Foster Mother, Tries To Crush Out Of Existence.

If Coming Events Are Said To Cast Their Shadows Before, Past Events Cannot Fall To Leave Their Impress Behind Them.

Public Opinion, This Invisible, Intangible, Omnipresent, Despotic Tyrant; This Thousand-headed Hydra - The More Dangerous For Being Composed Of Individual Mediocrities...

The Man Might Have Become A Power, But He Preferred To Remain An Ass.

But, If The Knowledge Of The Occult Powers Of Nature Opens The Spiritual Sight Of Man, Enlarges His Intellectual Faculties, And Leads Him Unerringly To A Profounder Veneration For The Creator, On The Other Hand Ignorance, Dogmatic Narrow-mindedness, And A Childish Fear Of Looking To The Bottom Of Things, Invariably Leads To Fetish-worship And Superstition.

We Cut These Numerous Windings In Our Destinies Daily With Our Own Hands, While We Imagine That We Are Pursuing A Track On The Royal High Road Of Respectability And Duty, And Then Complain Of Those Ways Being So Intricate And So Dark. We Stand Bewildered Before The Mystery Of Our Own Making, And The Riddles Of Life That We Will Not Solve, And Then Accuse The Great Sphinx Of Devouring Us.

Everything Lives And Perishes Through Magnetism; One Thing Affects Another One, Even At Great Distances, And Its "congenitals" May Be Influenced To Health And Disease By The Power Of This Sympathy, At Any Time, And Notwithstanding The Intervening Space.

If Thou Would'st Have That Stream Of Hard-earn'd Knowledge, Of Wisdom Heaven-born, Remain Sweet Running Waters, Thou Should'st Not Leave It To Become A Stagnant Pond.

Help Nature And Work On With Her; And Nature Will Regard Thee As One Of Her Creators . . . She Will Lay Bare Before Thy Gaze The Treasures Hidden In The Depths Of Her Pure Virgin Bosom.

We Live In An Age Of Prejudice, Dissimulation And Paradox, Wherein, Like Dry Leaves Caught In A Whirlpool, Some Of Us Are Tossed Helpless . . . Ever Struggling Between Our Honest Convictions And Fear Of That Cruelest Of Tyrants -- Public Opinion.

"the Myths," Says Horace In His Ars Poetica, "have Been Invented By Wise Men To Strengthen The Laws And Teach Moral Truths." While Horace Endeavored To Make Clear The Very Spirit And Essence Of The Ancient Myths, Euhemerus Pretended, On The Contrary, That "myths Were The Legendary History Of Kings And Heroes, Transformed Into Gods By The Admiration Of The Nations." It Is The Latter Method Which Was Inferentially Followed By Christians When They Agreed Upon The Acceptation Of Euhemerized Patriarchs, And Mistook Them For Men Who Had Really Lived.

This Law -- Whether Conscious Or Unconscious --predestines Nothing And No One. It Exists From And In Eternity, Truly, For It Is Eternity Itself; And As Such, Since No Act Can Be Co-equal With Eternity, It Cannot Be Said To Act, For It Is Action Itself...karma Creates Nothing, Nor Does It Design. It Is Man Who Plans And Creates Causes, And Karmic Law Adjusts The Effects; Which Adjustment Is Not An Act, But Universal Harmony, Tending Ever To Resume Its Original Position.

The Universe Is Worked And Guided From Within Outwards.

A Solitary Ascetic Is A Symbol Of The Most Cowardly Egotism; A Hermit Who Flees From His Brothers Instead Of Helping Them To Carry The Burden Of Life, To Work For Others, And To Put Their Shoulders To The Wheel Of Social Life, Is A Coward Who Hides Himself When The Battle Is On, And Goes To Sleep Drunk On An Opiate.

Burdens Of Life

So Little Have Thee First Christians (who Despoiled The Jews Of Their Bible) Understood The First Four Chapters Of Genesis In Their Esoteric Meaning, That They Never Perceived That Not Only Was No Sin Intended In This Disobedience, But That Actually The 'serpent' Was 'the Lord God' Himself, Who, As The Ophis, The Logos, Or The Bearer Of Divine Creative Wisdom, Taught Mankind To Become Creators In Their Turn.

From Architecture Down To The Zodiac, Every Science Worthy Of The Name Was Imported By The Greeks

We Must Prepare And Study Truth Under Every Aspect, Endeavoring To Ignore Nothing, If We Do Not Wish To Fall Into The Abyss Of The Unknown When The Hour Shall Strike.

The Appearance And Disappearance Of The Universe Are Pictured As An Outbreathing And Inbreathing Of The" Great Breath," Which Is Eternal, And Which, Being Motion, Is One Of The Three Aspects Of The Absolute - Abstract Space And Duration Being The Other Two.

There Is No Religion Higher Than Truth.

We See That Every External Motion, Act, Gesture, Whether Voluntary Or Mechanical, Organic Or Mental, Is Produced And Preceded By Internal Feeling Or Emotion, Will Or Volition, And Thought Or Mind.

The Exercise Of Magical Power Is The Exercise Of Natural Powers, But Superior To The Ordinary Functions Of Nature. A Miracle Is Not A Violation Of The Laws Of Nature, Except For Ignorant People. Magic Is But A Science, A Profound Knowledge Of The Occult Forces In Nature, And Of The Laws Governing The Visible Or The Invisible World. Spiritualism In The Hands Of An Adept Becomes Magic, For He Is Learned In The Art Of Blending Together The Laws Of The Universe, Without Breaking Any Of Them And Thereby Violating Nature.

The Essence Of Theosophy Is The Perfect Harmonizing Of The Divine With The Human In Man, The Adjustment Of His God-like Qualities And Aspirations, And Their Sway Over The Terrestrial Or Animal Passions In Him. Kindness, Absence Of Every Ill Feeling Or Selfishness, Charity, Goodwill To All Beings, And Perfect Justice To Others As To Oneself, Are Its Chief Features. He Who Teaches Theosophy Preaches The Gospel Of Goodwill; And The Converse Of This Is True Also — He Who Preaches The Gospel Of Goodwill, Teaches Theosophy.

Knowledge Increases In Proportion To Its Use; That Is, The More We Teach The More We Learn.

Strength Your Soul Against The Stalk Of The Ego, Make It Worth Of The Name Of Diamond Soul.

That Cruelest Of Tyrants - Public Opinion.

The Human Mind Can Hardly Remain Entirely Free From Bias, And Decisive Opinions Are Often Formed Before A Thorough Examination Of A Subject From All Its Aspects Has Been Made.

Is The Scraping Off Of A Barnacle The Destruction Of A Ship?

Reflect Upon The Defects Of Your Character: Thoroughly Realize Their Evils And The Transient Pleasures They Give You, And Firmly Will That You Shall Try Your Best Not To Yield To Them The Next Time.

Never Allow Any Unnecessary Or Vain Thought To Occupy Your Mind. This Is More Easily Said Than Done. You Cannot Make Your Mind A Blank All At Once. So In The Beginning Try To Prevent Evil Or Idle Thoughts By Occupying Your Mind With The Analysis Of Your Own Faults, Or The Contemplation Of The Perfect Ones.

How Long Shall We Spiritualists Be Turned Over Like So Many Scapegoats To The Unbelievers, By Cheating Mediums And Speculating Prophets?

The Discoveries Of Modern Science Do Not Disagree With The Oldest Traditions Which Claim An Incredible Antiquity For Our Race.

The Wheel Of The Good Law Moves Swiftly On. It Grinds By Night And Day. The Worthless Husks It Drives From Out The Golden Grain, The Refuse From The Flour. The Hand Of Fate Guides The Wheel; The Revolutions Mark The Beatings Of The Heart Of Manifestation.

Dogmas Are The Toys That Amuse And Can Satisfy But Unreasoning Children. They Are The Offspring Of Human Speculation And Prejudiced Fancy.

The Idea Of Passing One's Whole Life In Moral Idleness, And Having One's Hardest Work And Duty Done By Another-whether God Or Man-is Most Revolting To Us, As It Is Most Degrading To Human Dignity.

Even In Our Day, Science Suspects Beyond The Polar Seas, At The Very Circle Of The Arctic Pole, The Existence Of A Sea Which Never Freezes And A Continent Which Is Ever Green.

The More Thou Dost Advance, The More Thy Feet Pitfalls Will Meet.

Everything That Is, Was, And Will Be, Eternally Is, Even The Countless Forms, Which Are Finite And Perishable Only In Their Objective, Not In Their Ideal Form.

Every One Of The Numberless Religions And Religious Sects Views The Deity After Its Own Fashion; And, Fathering On The Unknown Its Own Speculations, It Enforces These Purely Human Outgrowths Of Overheated Imagination On The Ignorant Masses, And Calls Them "revelation." As The Dogmas Of Every Religion And Sect Often Differ Radically, They Cannot Be True. And If Untrue, What Are They?

I Speak "with Absolute Certainty" Only So Far As My Own Personal Belief Is Concerned. Those Who Have Not The Same Warrant For Their Belief As I Have, Would Be Very Credulous And Foolish To Accept It On Blind Faith. Nor Does The Writer Believe Any More Than Her Correspondent And His Friends In Any "authority" Let Alone "divine Revelation"!

The Christians Were The First To Make The Existence Of Satan A Dogma Of The Church. What Is The Use In A Pope If There Is No Devil ?

The Whole Order Of Nature Evinces A Progressive March Towards A Higher Life.

As No Cause Remains Without Its Due Effect From Greatest To Least, From A Cosmic Disturbance Down To The Movement Of Your Hand, And As Like Produces Like, Karma Is That Unseen And Unknown Law Which Adjusts Wisely, Intelligently, And Equitably Each Effect To Its Cause, Tracing The Latter Back To Its Producer.

The More Thou Dost Advance, The More Thy Feet Pitfalls Will Meet. The Path That Leadeth On Is Lighted By One Fire - The Light Of Daring Burning In The Heart. The More One Dares, The More He Shall Obtain. The More He Fears, The More That Light Shall Pale.

Man Is Spiritual Being -- A Soul, In Other Words -- And That This Soul Takes On Different Bodies From Life To Life On Earth To Order At Last To Arrive At Such Perfect Knowledge, Through Repeated Experience, As To Enable One To Assume A Body Fit To Be The Dwelling-place Of A Mahatma Or Perfected Soul. Then, They Say, That Particular Soul Becomes A Spiritual Helper To Mankind.

"true Science Has No Belief," Says Dr. Fenwick, In Bulwer-lytton's 'strange Story;' "true Science Knows But Three States Of Mind: Denial, Conviction, And The Vast Interval Between The Two, Which Is Not Belief, But The Suspension Of Judgment." Such, Perhaps, Was True Science In Dr. Fenwick's Days. But The True Science Of Our Modern Times Proceeds Otherwise; It Either Denies Point-blank, Without Any Preliminary Investigation, Or Sits In The Interim, Between Denial And Conviction, And, Dictionary In Hand, Invents New Graeco-latin Appellations For Non-existing Kinds Of Hysteria!

Endurance Is The Free Companion Of Sorrow, And Patience Her Master.

Lucifer Represents Life, Though, Progress, Civilization, Liberty, Independence. Lucifer Is The Logos, The Serpent, The Savior.

The Mind Is The Slayer Of The Real, Let The Disciples Slay The Slayer.

Dogma? Faith? These Are The Right And Left Pillars Of Every Soul-crushing Theology. Theosophists Have No Dogmas, Exact No Blind Faith.

Theosophy Blesses The World; Theology Is Its Curse.

I Have Pledged My Word To Help People On To Truth While Living And - Will Keep My Word. Let Them Abuse And Revile Me. Let Some Call Me A Medium, And A Spiritualist, And Others An Imposter. The Day Will Come When Posterity Will Learn To Know Me Better.

Time Is Only An Illusion Produced By The Succession Of Our States Of Consciousness As We Travel Through Eternal Duration, And It Does Not Exist Where No Consciousness Exists In Which The Illusion Can Be Produced; But "lies Asleep."

Everything In The Universe, Throughout All Its Kingdoms, Is Conscious: I.e., Endowed With A Consciousness Of Its Own Kind And On Its Own Plane Of Perception.

Meditation Has Been Defined As The Cessation Of Active Eternal Thought.

All Things That Ever Were, That Are, Or That Will Be, Having; Their Record Upon The Astral Light, Or Tablet Of The Unseen Universe, The Initiated Adept, By Using The Vision Of His Own Spirit, Can Know All That Has Been Known Or Can Be Known.

Becoming Is The Mode Of Activity Of The Uncreate Deity.

Science Regards Man As An Aggregation Of Atoms Temporarily United By A Mysterious Force Called The Life-principle. To The Materialist The Only Difference Between A Living And A Dead Body Is, That In The One Case That Force Is Active, In The Other Latent. When It Is Extinct Or Entirely Latent, The Molecules Obey A Superior Attraction, Which Draws Them Asunder And Scatters Them Through Space. This Dispersion Must Be Death, If It Is Possible To Conceive Such A Thing As Death Where The Very Molecules Of The Dead Body Manifest An Intense Vital Energy.

The Possible Truths, Hazily Perceived In The World Of Abstraction, Like Those Inferred From Observation And Experiment In The World Of Matter, Are Forced Upon The Profane Multitudes, Too Busy To Think For Themselves, Under The Form Of Divine Revelation And Scientific Authority. But The Same Question Stands Open From The Days Of Socrates And Pilate Down To Our Own Age Of Wholesale Negation: Is There Such A Thing As Absolute Truth In The Hands Of Any One Party Or Man?

When Science Shall Have Effectually Demonstrated To Us The Origin Of Matter, And Proved The Fallacy Of The Occultists And Old Philosophers Who Held (as Their Descendants Now Hold) That Matter Is But One Of The Correlations Of Spirit, Then Will The World Of Skeptics Have A Right To Reject The Old Wisdom, Or Throw The Charge Of Obscenity In The Teeth Of The Old Religions.

Whatever Plane Our Consciousness May Be Acting In, Both We And The Things Belonging To That Plane Are, For The Time Being, Our Only Realities. As We Rise In The Scale Of Development We Perceive That During The Stages Through Which We Have Passed We Mistook Shadows For Realities, And The Upward Progress Of The Ego Is A Series Of Progressive Awakenings, Each Advance Bringing With It The Idea That Now, At Last, We Have Reached "reality"; But Only When We Shall Have Reached The Absolute Consciousness, And Blended Our Own With It, Shall We Be Free From The Delusions Produced By Maya [illusion].

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