She describes her plight in her first book thus:
When, years ago, we first traveled over the East, exploring the penetralia of its deserted sanctuaries, two saddening and ever-recurring questions oppressed our thoughts: Where, who, what is God? Who ever saw the immortal Spirit of man, so as to be able to assure himself of man’s immortality? It was while most anxious to solve these perplexing problems that we came into contact with certain men, endowed with such mysterious powers and such profound knowledge that we may truly designate them as the sages of the Orient. To their instruction we lent a ready ear. They showed us that by combining science with religion, the existence of God and immortality of man’s spirit may be demonstrated like a problem of Euclid.
The bidding given to her is to bring a group of people to a better understanding of Life and its processes, to make known to the public that there is a continuity for Life (no death) in form after form till a stage of perfection is reached, and the journey before humanity is rather ‘obligatory’ than ‘optional’. She was given ‘instructions’ as to what is to be done; the ‘how’ part of it was subject to her thinking, imagination and good spirit. She was alone in the pursuit, of course joined by very few like-minded persons around the globe, too few around her to serve her needs occasionally. Her insight was improved upon and she was able to see material things, objects and events through a spiritual eye. She warned that if the realities of the spirit are attempted to be seen by physical eye that will be the source for all confusion and chaos in human understanding.
Philosophy starts with a look at the wonder enveloping manifestation. A person looks at the surroundings, other men and women, nature and its continuous springing with new stems, etc. and there is an unexplainable awe and wonder at every thing. Then he or she starts questioning to understand things better and more clearly. Ethics or Right Living is normally considered the beginning of philosophy, yet it is the culmination. Ethics is the end point of philosophic living and being. ‘Theosophy is first and foremost Ethics,’ asserts Madame Blavatsky and she untiringly explains in her writings how the helping of one’s neighbor is a preliminary exercise gradually expanding to helping all ‘humanity’ without any distinction whatsoever.
She mentions a Principle which is ever-present, infinite, eternal and immutable, the source, emanation and evolution of all manifestation. She further elucidates:
It is that same Principle which may be understood and realized but in our innermost thought, in solemn silence and in reverential awe. It is but during such moments of illumination that man may have a glimpse of it, as from and in the Eternity. It broods in (not over) the Waters of Life, in the boundless chaos of cosmic Ether as the manifested or the unmanifest universe. This Narayana is the seventh principle of the manifested solar system. It is the Antaratma, or the latent spirit everywhere present in the five tanmatras, which in their admixture and unity, constitute what is called by Western occultists the pre-adamite earth. This principle or Paramanu is located by the ancient Rishis of India (as may be seen in Maha-Narayana or Taittiriya Upanishad) in the centre of astral fire. Its name of Narayana is given to it, because of its presence in all the individual spiritual monads of the manifested solar system. This principle is, in fact, the Logos, and the one ego of the Western Occultists and Kabalists, and it is the Real and Sole deity to which the ancient Rishis of Aryavarta addressed their prayers, and directed their aspirations.
This Principle emanates the First Cause for everything, periodically appearing and disappearing as worlds, generating the beings that people them in gradation and ultimately reabsorbing them into the origin/source, after completion of the ‘obligatory journey.’ She establishes that there is perfect identity between the Principle and all items of manifestation, giving out elaborate explanations and evidences.
If we look at these abstract statements we clearly see that these are, in sum and substance, what every philosophical thought, in the West or in the East, assert in their own terminology and tenor.
Then one would ask: ‘What is the Secret about it? How is it a Doctrine at all?’
It is true and also a fact that the general public knows the content of it on hearsay. It is now being told on authority of certain scriptural texts of the ancient, time-tested findings and more than anything else the commonality of the knowledge is traced to the One Source. The beauty and fineness of it is its content and the substantiation is placed before the world reader for examination as to its rationale, scientific scrutiny, not for acceptance on blind belief or as a bitter pill to swallow on authority of some great Teacher. All this may appear to be a folk tale or a fairy tale; Madame Blavatsky says that those are only symbolical and allegorical statements which place before the profane the truths/laws of Nature. All this is a doctrine said in parables or fables for common appeal and understanding; not one crystallized dogmatic presentation. The practice in popularization of philosophic truths the world over, notwithstanding time and space, has used this method. To oversimplify, every one knows the secret but not the fact that it was a ‘secret’. All sacred things are secret, though the vice-versa is not true.
It starts with cosmology and ends with the ‘man in future’. History, anthropology and such standards are also applied, making it clear that source material for such studies is embodied therein. Evolution of man, world, civilizations, the keys and deadlocks therewith are elucidated. Certain new factors also spring up. There is simultaneous evolution of seven human groups in seven different portions of the globe. Before the physical form is evolved, the astral root for it was available. Life proceeds through the forms but forms or matter do not emanate life and consciousness. Kingdoms of Life move on, there was the human form on this globe even before the animal kingdom sprang up. Theories of evolution advanced by Darwin are furthered in understanding by supplying the missing links. Where did science not succeed? Where did religion superimpose its redundant practices extraneously? These questions were thoroughly discussed. Science of the objects is expanded to the inner or invisible life and new ways of finding solutions to numerous problems of Life and Consciousness are indicated. The whole gamut of symbolism underlying the earlier teachings is elaborated. The need for fusing the physical and psychological sciences with that of the spiritual sciences is made an inescapable necessity for the continuance of humanity on the globe. How intelligence came first and in advance, its guidance through ages by Beings, called reverentially the Celestial, and the manner and method involved in the course of manifestation are the topics of absorbing interest in these volumes entitled The Secret Doctrine.
‘The whole essence of truth cannot be transmitted from mouth to ear, unless man finds the answer in the sanctuary of his own heart, in the innermost depths of his divine intuitions. This is the seventh mystery of creation,’ avers Madame Blavatsky. Honoring the Master-Disciple relationship traditionally oriented, she makes it relevant that man finds the inner meanings of perennial truths by personal effort and endeavor. Thus merit is gained. She explains the Vedas to be the ‘mirror of eternal wisdom’ and the Rig-Veda, in particular, a ‘most sublime conception of the great highways of humanity’ among the world scriptural texts. She enlightens the pre-Vedic cultures and philosophies in the time-circles. ‘Truth is the daughter of Time’ and ‘scriptures provide a springboard’ to enumerate further policies to carry out. She subtitled The Secret Doctrine as a “The Synthesis of Religion, Philosophy and Science”. Claiming no infallibility, the search for truth is an endless pursuit. ‘Wisdom has built her house; she has hewn out her seven pillars’. In her concluding remarks she asserts: ‘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.’ She shows how man is unique in the way that he has a Mind that invokes Intelligence and reach Divinity in Pure Consciousness, and calls him the ‘crown of creation’, emanation and evolution providing him with this opportunity. |
