Writings of H P Blavatsky
Theosophy House
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Helena Petrovna
Blavatsky (1831 – 1891)
The Founder of
Modern Theosophy
Is The Desire
To Live
Selfish?
By
H P Blavatsky
THE passage, "to Live, to Live, TO LIVE must be the unswerving
resolve," occurring in the article on the Elixir of Life, published in the
March and April Numbers of Vol. III of the Theosophist, is often quoted, by
superficial readers unsympathetic with the Theosophical Society, as an argument
that the above teaching, of occultism is the most concentrated form of
selfishness. In order to determine whether the critics are right or wrong, the
meaning of the word "selfishness" must first be ascertained.
According to an established authority, selfishness is that
"exclusive regard to one's own interest or happiness; that supreme
self-love or self-preference which leads a person to direct his purposes to the
advancement of his own interest, power, or happiness, without regarding those
of others."
In short, an absolutely selfish individual is one who cares for himself
and none else, or, in other words, one who is so strongly imbued with a sense
of importance of his own personality that to him it is the acme of all his
thoughts, desires and aspirations and beyond that all is a perfect blank. Now,
can an occultist be then said to be "selfish" when he desires to live
in the sense in which that word is used by the writer of the article on the
Elixir of Life? It has been said over and over again that the ultimate end of
every aspirant after occult knowledge is Nirvana or Mukti, when the individual,
freed from all Mayavic Upadhi, becomes one with Paramatma, or the Son
identifies himself with the Father in Christian phraseology. For that purpose,
every veil of illusion which creates a sense of personal isolation, a feeling
of separateness from THE ALL, must be torn asunder, or, in other words, the
aspirant must gradually discard all sense of selfishness with which we are all
more or less affected. A study of the Law of Cosmic Evolution teaches us that
the higher the evolution, the more does it tend towards Unity. In fact, Unity
is the ultimate possibility of Nature, and those who through vanity and
selfishness go against her purposes, cannot but incur the punishment of total
annihilation. The Occultist thus recognises that unselfishness and a feeling of
universal philanthropy are the inherent law of our being, and all he does is to
attempt to destroy the chains of selfishness forged upon us by Maya. The
struggle then between Good and Evil, God and Satan, Suras and Asuras, Devas and
Daityas, which is mentioned in the sacred books of all the nations and races,
symbolizes the battle between unselfishness and the selfish impulses, which
takes place in a man, who tries to follow the higher purposes of Nature, until
the lower animal tendencies, created by selfishness, are completely conquered,
and the enemy thoroughly routed and annihilated. It has also been often put
forth in various theosophical and other occult writings that the only
difference between an ordinary man who works along with Nature during the
course of cosmic evolution and an occultist, is that the latter, by his
superior knowledge, adopts such methods of training and discipline as will
hurry on that process of evolution, and he thus reaches in a comparatively very
short time that apex to ascend to which the ordinary individual may take
perhaps billions of years. In short, in a few thousand years he approaches that
form of evolution which ordinary humanity will attain to perhaps in the sixth
or the seventh round during the process of Manvantara, i.e., cyclic
progression. It is evident that the average man cannot become a MAHATMA in one
life, or rather in one incarnation. Now those, who have studied the occult
teachings concerning Devachan and our after-states, will remember that between
two incarnations there is a considerable period of subjective existence. The
greater the number of such Devachanic periods, the greater is the number of
years over which this evolution is extended. The chief aim of the occultist is
therefore to so control himself as to be able to control his future states, and
thereby gradually shorten the duration of his Devachanic states between his two
incarnations. In his progress, there comes a time when, between one physical
death and his next re-birth, there is no Devachan but a kind of spiritual
sleep, the shock of death, having, so to say, stunned him into a state of
unconsciousness from which he gradually recovers to find himself reborn, to
continue his purpose. The period of this sleep may vary from twenty-five to two
hundred years, depending upon the degree of his advancement. But even this
period may be said to be a waste of time, and hence all his exertions are
directed to shorten its duration so as to gradually come to a point when the
passage from one state of existence into another is almost imperceptible. This
is his last incarnation, as it were, for the shock of death no more stuns him.
This is the idea the writer of the article on the Elixir of Life means to
convey, when he says:--
By or about the time when the Death-limit of his race is passed HE IS
ACTUALLY DEAD, in the ordinary sense, that is to say, that he has relieved
himself of all or nearly all such material particles as would have necessitated
in disruption the agony of dying. He has been dying gradually the whole period
of his Initiation. The catastrophe cannot happen twice over. He has only spread
over a number of years the mild process of dissolution which others endure from
a brief moment to a few hours. The highest Adept is in fact dead to, and
absolutely unconscious of, the World--he is oblivious of its pleasures,
careless of its miseries--in so far as sentimentalism goes, for the stern sense
of DUTY never leaves him blind to its very existence. . . .
The process of the emission and attraction of atoms, which the occultist
controls, has been discussed at length in that article and in other writings.
It is by these means that he gets rid gradually of all the old gross particles
of his body, substituting for them finer and more ethereal ones, till at last
the former sthula sarira is completely dead and disintegrated and he lives in a
body entirely of his own creation, suited to his work. That body is essential
for his purposes, for, as the Elixir of Life says:--
But to do good, as in every thing else, a man must have time and
materials to work with, and this is a necessary means to the acquirement of
powers by which infinitely more good can be done than without them. When these
are once mastered, the opportunities to use them will arrive. . . .
In another place, in giving the practical instructions for that purpose,
the same article says:
The physical man must be rendered more ethereal and sensitive; the
mental man more penetrating and profound; the moral man more self-denying and
philosophical.
The above important considerations are lost sight of by those who snatch
away from the context the following passage in the same article:--
And from this account too, it will be perceptible how foolish it is for
people to ask the Theosophists "to procure for them communication with the
highest Adepts." It is with the utmost difficulty that one or two can be
induced, even by the throes of a world, to injure their own progress by
meddling with mundane affairs. The ordinary reader will say--"This is not
God-1ike. This is the acme of selfishness" . . . . But let him realise
that a very high Adept, undertaking to reform the world, would necessarily have
to once more submit to Incarnation. And is the result of all that have gone
before in that line sufficiently encouraging to prompt a renewal of the attempt?
Now, in condemning the above passage as inculcating selfishness,
superficial readers and thinkers lose sight of various important
considerations. In the first place, they forget the other extracts already
quoted which impose self-denial as a necessary condition of success, and which
say that, with progress, new senses and new powers are acquired with which
infinitely more good can be done than without them. The more spiritual the
Adept becomes, the less can he meddle with mundane, gross affairs and the more
he has to confine himself to a spiritual work. It has been repeated, time out
of number, that the work on a spiritual plane is as superior to the work on an
intellectual plane as the one on the latter plane is superior to that on a
physical plane. The very high Adepts, therefore, do help humanity, but only
spiritually: they are constitutionally incapable of meddling with worldly
affairs. But this applies only to very high Adepts. There are various degrees
of Adeptship, and those of each degree work for humanity on the planes to which
they may have risen. It is only the chelas that can live in the world, until
they rise to a certain degree. And it is because the Adepts do care for the
world that they make their chelas live in and work for it, as many of those who
study the subject are aware. Each cycle produces its own occultists who will be
able to work for the humanity of those times on all the different planes; but
when the Adepts foresee that at a particular period the then humanity will be
incapable of producing occultists for work on particular planes, for such
occasions they do provide by either giving up voluntarily their further
progress and waiting in those particular degrees until humanity reaches that
period, or by refusing to enter into Nirvana and submitting to re-incarnation
in time to reach those degrees when humanity will require their assistance at
that stage. And although the world may not be aware of the fact, yet there are
even now certain Adepts who have preferred to remain statu quo and refuse to
take the higher degrees, for the benefit of the future generations of humanity.
In short, as the Adepts work harmoniously, since unity is the fundamental law
of their being, they have as it were made a division of labour, according to
which each works on the plane at the time allotted to him, for the spiritual
elevation of us all--and the process of longevity mentioned in the Elixir of
Life is only the means to the end which, far from being selfish, is the most
unselfish purpose for which a human being can labour.
Theosophist, July, 1884
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Preface
Theosophy and the Masters General Principles
The Earth Chain Body and Astral Body Kama – Desire
Manas Of Reincarnation Reincarnation Continued
Karma Kama Loka
Devachan
Cycles
Arguments Supporting Reincarnation
Differentiation Of Species Missing Links
Psychic Laws, Forces, and Phenomena
Psychic Phenomena and Spiritualism
Quick Explanations with Links to More Detailed Info
What is Theosophy ? Theosophy Defined (More Detail)
Three Fundamental Propositions Key Concepts of Theosophy
Cosmogenesis Anthropogenesis Root Races
Ascended Masters After Death States
The Seven Principles of Man Karma
Reincarnation Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
Colonel Henry Steel Olcott William Quan Judge
The Start of the Theosophical
Society
History of the Theosophical
Society
Theosophical Society Presidents
History of the Theosophical
Society in Wales
The Three Objectives of the
Theosophical Society
Explanation of the Theosophical
Society Emblem
The Theosophical Order of
Service (TOS)
Glossaries of Theosophical Terms
Index of Searchable
Full Text Versions of
Definitive
Theosophical Works
H P Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine
Isis Unveiled by H P Blavatsky
H P Blavatsky’s Esoteric Glossary
Mahatma Letters to A P Sinnett 1 - 25
A Modern Revival of Ancient Wisdom
(Selection of Articles by H P Blavatsky)
The Secret Doctrine – Volume 3
A compilation of H P Blavatsky’s
writings published after her death
Esoteric Christianity or the Lesser Mysteries
The Early Teachings of The Masters
A Collection of Fugitive Fragments
Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy
Mystical,
Philosophical, Theosophical, Historical
and Scientific
Essays Selected from "The Theosophist"
Edited by George Robert Stow Mead
From Talks on the Path of Occultism - Vol. II
In the Twilight”
Series of Articles
The In the
Twilight” series appeared during
1898 in The
Theosophical Review and
from 1909-1913 in The Theosophist.
compiled from
information supplied by
her relatives and friends and edited by A P Sinnett
Letters and
Talks on Theosophy and the Theosophical Life
Obras Teosoficas En Espanol
Theosophische Schriften Auf Deutsch
An Outstanding
Introduction to Theosophy
By a student of
Katherine Tingley
Elementary Theosophy Who is the Man? Body and Soul
Body, Soul and Spirit Reincarnation Karma
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