the life of madame levatsky is rather too well known to require an elaborate discussion at this time rather it seems more profitable to attempt to integrate her place and the descent of what might be termed esoteric philosophy in the west for practical purposes orientalism as a philosophical factor in the thinking of western man [Music] first came into focus in the closing years of the 18th century prior to that time east and west were so far apart and western religious dogmatism was so intense that there was little if any cultural interchange thus for a very long time nearly two thousand years western culture attempted to maintain a complete isolation refusing to admit its indebtedness to great asiatic systems which were old before with western civilization was born colonel robert ingesol remarked on one occasion that the chinese were comb piling great libraries indexing them classifying them and researching in them while western europe european man was still mumbling the bones of animals in prehistoric caves and this perhaps slightly exaggerated is not very far from the truth in the early years of the 19th century there was a decided break in western orthodoxy the rather conservative and inadequate literalism of protestant christianity was being assailed by a need within man himself he was not getting the spiritual nutrition that he required for a well-integrated religious life so we find that as early as ralph waldo emerson efforts were made to enlarge and enrich the schools of western tradition the universities were still more or less close to all liberal religious thinking if today they are inclined to be brutally agnostic at that time they were adamantly orthodox nearly all chairs of philosophy were occupied by doctors of divinity and what has been called the school of scottish metaphysicians dominated the educational world there were no breaks as yet in favor of liberalism in higher education but individuals like emerson began to recognize that beyond the sea on the other side of the world some interesting thoughts have come to the world the great scriptures had been written wonderful classics had been compiled great teachers had arisen and that a rich legacy of spiritual tradition was completely locked from us simply by the narrowness of our own thinking as a result of some moderate reading a not too substantial authorities emerson was able to sense some of the grandeur of eastern thinking and he has revealed this to us through his amazon through his essays on the oversoul and his essay on compensation he knew the bhagavad gita one of the greatest mystical books of asia he was aware that in this distant area there was a deep quiet calm wisdom which might be rather practical and useful in the confusion of the western world in any event let us realize that between about 1825 and 1850 there was a broad rise of mysticism the necessities and transcendentalism in the eastern part of the united states and as the time went on that happened which almost always happens under such conditions there was a an almost frantic searching for more of this unusual information the result was more or less pathetic the necessary texts were not available there were practically no translations from eastern languages and very few western scholars who had any knowledge of asiatic tongues there was no break in this wall between east and west and only an occasional fragment drifted into our western comprehension it was as a result of the unrest the stimulation of the unknown the sudden sensing of value out of reach that the groundwork was laid for the rise of a strong asiatic study group in western civilization and at the critical moment when this appeared to be most valuable and most greatly desired madame blavatsky and colonel alcott founded in new york in 1875 the theosophical society this society was composed of many interesting and brilliant persons while it surrounded largely the personality and the immediate personal achievements of madame blavatsky it cannot be said that she was entirely alone in her activity through the inspiration which she provided a number of western european and american scholars went to india gradually indian religious writings were translated into english much of the translation being done by hindu students and scholars who associated themselves with the society in india little by little a bridge was built a bridge which perhaps made possible uh the later visit to this country of one of the first bona fide oriental scholars the swami vivekananda not only was this oriental subject unknown but like many unknown things it was subject to a great deal of animosity and persecution we had not yet reached that point in international thinking in which we could be fair about the opinions beliefs and convictions of other peoples and even today if a poll were taken i think it would be safe to say to the majority of western persons the buddhists brahmanas confucianists taoists are still regarded as heathens uh this situation has improved but not entirely has it been corrected in public thinking we have really no solid foundation for religious inter-understanding even at the present time the orientalist in the western world is still regarded with certain suspicion but a more liberal attitude on the theory of religion has brought with it a measure of tolerance but not a measure of acceptance i have recently examined a number of brochures and pieces of publicity that have come through throughout office and many of them still contain uh words or at least implications that all these foreign beliefs are heresies uh that they are the works of the devil set up to interfere with the development of literal christian orthodoxy of course in the time madame blavatsky the situation was still worse although undoubtedly it was considerably improved over an earlier time in which all liberals were cheerfully burned at the stake it reached a point where they were merely scandalized and insulted the original work of h.p blavatsky stands more or less unique even within the field of related literature and as the result of the years which have passed since 1888 when the volumes were first published we are aware that her own peculiar and particular insight still makes these works unique remarkable and valuable madame blavatsky herself was the first to admit that the books which she wrote would prove highly controversial she frankly acknowledges that the type of proof which the scientific world requires simply was not available also that there was little to be gained by attempting to imply an authority that it was wiser that the book should be accepted as the works of an individual that they represented a very careful study of a vast area of ancient tradition the landmarks not available to the average student those that are accessible difficult to find and that the only possible way in which the material could be verified would be for another person to go through exactly the same procedure that she went through needless to say no such person has arisen since her time and therefore from the scientific standpoint the secret doctrine still remains an enigma it is a mystery yet in the course of years a great deal has been done to clarify that mystery many of the remarks which she made at that time which were highly controversial are now generally accepted many of the findings which she reported and which amazed her contemporaries now belong to our common knowledge thus perhaps the only answer to a riddle of this kind is time itself which justifies and validates that which is true and most of the work of subsequent oriental scholars has to a great degree supported her findings not in every instance but in the majority of cases therefore perhaps if we go back to 1888 at a time when things were not nearly so liberal or progressive or well organized in knowledge as they seem to be today we can appreciate the position which she took and the courage which it required to stand out against the rising force of scientific materialism as well as religious orthodoxy so i'd like to just read a few lines from the original preface of the secret doctrine to point out some of the elements with which she was primarily concerned the aim of this work may be thus stated to show that nature is not a fortuitous concurrence of atoms and to assign to man his rightful place in the scheme of the universe to rescue from degradation the archaic truths which are the basis of all religions and to uncover to some extent the fundamental unity from which they all spring finally to show that the occult side of nature has never been approached by the science of modern civilization this i think summarizes in the main her springboard or her point of view this brings us of course to the next important step having come to such a conclusion what would it be natural to do about it believing this to be true accepting it as a conviction it is then necessary to build a strong testimony in favor of the concept that has been advanced this is perfectly proper literary and scholastic procedure it is the same premise upon which a thesis must be written it is that having accepted or established a point of view it is necessary to defend that point of view skillfully reasonably and adequately and in the defense of a point of view from the standpoint of a thesis the requirement always is adequate documentation adequate reference to recognized authority adequate research in various highly specialized fields and usually a prerequisite is intimate contact with sources of basic information a thesis is not prepared merely to summarize knowledge it must in every case advance some new conviction it must in every case contribute something to that which is already known it cannot be merely what you might term a rehash in order to meet these requirements therefore madame blavatsky was not required and would not be required by a modern university today to prove beyond question every point that she makes she is required however to prove beyond reasonable doubt that her basic assumption is well taken it was her responsibility then as a writer of a serious scholastic work to justify through her own research certain fundamental positions which she held and to provide an adequate bibliography an adequate annotated reference frame for her work madame levasky did this perhaps more adequately than most highly respected scientific writers and i think it would be safe to say that today if this paper was submitted this work was submitted as a thesis in a major university it would be accepted this does not mean that it would be approved as to content but one point that has been highly controversial for many years in connection with the secret doctrine is no longer valid namely that the work is not adequately presented it is adequately presented according to every rule now in force governing such matters by being adequately presented in this case it means that the book itself reveals not only thorough scholarship but by quotation particularly from sacred writings or from early commentaries thereon it shows that the premise is justified from the original authorities also the work indicates a large enough personal acquaintance with the areas of thought involved to satisfy even a most critical committee to pass upon such a work thus we are in the presence of a work which though it may be open to intense controversy is not open to any criticism so far as the methodology of its presentation is concerned now how did madame blavatsky come into contact with the information by which this work these volumes were made possible here we come into a highly controversial area an area for which at the present time there is no final scientific point of view she insists and wrote and stated clearly that the knowledge which she presented it was set forth on the premise or foundation that she was the writer of a book but not the author of it she disclaimed however any psychic mystery in connection with the work the work she simply held it to be a fact to be accepted or rejected by the reader according to his own convictions that the original material was communicated to her by advanced teachers by leaders in the esoteric system of asiatic knowledge in other words that this information came directly from initiated members of the secret schools of eastern philosophy now here of course we come into a problem that even yet has not been solved to everyone's satisfaction as yet it has not been possible to so clearly and definitely identify these teachers that no question whatsoever as to their identity or their existence remains these teachers were not generally known they were not generally available to scholars they did not act as exchange professors in any university they taught in their own ancient eastern way and there is no question on the part of madame blavatsky that these teachers were real that they communicated with her that they taught her that she regarded herself as their messenger or representative and that through their assistance the writings of the secret doctrine and other esoteric papers of the theosophical society were made possible in her own descriptions of her life and travels she is very clear on this particular point others are followed in her way others have attempted to follow the same path and course that she followed for the most part however these later travelers have not been able to confirm the stories which she told for a long time it was denied that madame blavatsky was ever in tibet and she is still not upon the official lists of those known to have reached this country at that time there is however very little doubt that she really was there in as much as some years ago that was published an autographed letter signed by the pancha llama of tashilampu the second most powerful religious leader in tibet to the effect that she had actually been at the monastery of tashilampu and studied there under his predecessor this sort of settled this question which was one of the large questions many will still say that the word of the punch on llama might be questioned but if we go on questioning in this way we can practically write off practically all unusual knowledge we have to admit that something is reasonable or probable and that persons of valid character and recognized integrity have to be accepted if no other evidence is available wherever it has been possible to check madame blavatsky's uh various travels excursions where her various articles in russian and other publications have been investigated the facts have usually been demonstrated to be correct as she listed them although she lived in a time of rather genteel femininity madame blavatsky was by no means simply a titled russian lady she was one of those unusual persons who defy convention and tradition she did not sit in some pleasant villa in the riviera and write she had an intensely uh interesting dangerous tempestuous and eventful life she did almost everything the genteel ladies did not do in the 19th century at that time if a lady rode horseback she wrote side saddle with a very voluminous riding habit when madame blavatsky wished to ride she wrote western american style and made no apology for it in traveling through the country on a train or an occasion in which it is reported that most of the passengers during the trip on one excuse or another walk through the coach where she was sitting as they had never before seen a well-dressed european lady rolling cigarettes with one hand and sitting with her feet up on the seat in front now of course such things as this were a scandal they offended all of the people who as madame blavatsky herself points out never did anything in this world except be offended by somebody [Music] uh she offended people who had never a thought in their minds but who objected to any breach in the traditional uh code of ladylike procedure she was shipwrecked in the mediterranean and arrived in alexandria with nothing in the form of a wardrobe except the entirely water-soaked garment she was wearing she engaged in numerous enterprises in order to provide the needs of her life because she was never a person of wealth her interests were widely diversified she was a musician of quality and at one time supported herself as a concert pianist on another occasion she manufactured artificial flowers she did all kinds of strange things wherever you followed her course you followed an eccentric and erratic career she crossed the united states and a cal stover wagon at one time presumably the wagon was attacked by indians but nothing serious resulted she lived for a time in santa fe new mexico and the house where she lives is still pointed out and there is just that touch which was typically her a large live tree growing up through the middle of the floor of the living room this we would have expected it was quite common she turned up in mining towns in northern california and a little later appeared down in central america at a time when no one knows how she got there naturally she spent considerable time in asia she traveled extensively in the most difficult regions of the far east in years when such travel even by european men was almost unknown everywhere she went she proved a highly trained and skillful observer contributing heavily to her own support through journalism and by constantly maintaining or preserving the integrity of eastern peoples against the general assailing of the west in the course of the years she made a number of very staunch and influential friends one of whom was colonel allcut who at one time was specially appointed by the president of the united states for a delicate diplomatic mission it might be interesting to know that even after all these years the issues around the founding of the theosophical society have never completely quieted down i received word not long ago that in ceylon this year a special national holiday is being celebrated not by members of any group but by the whole population of the island of ceylon to commemorate the work done in cause of education by colonel allcut the entire festival is very largely in appreciation of the early work of theosophy in east west understanding in silad so the work went on in its own way this interesting and remarkable person everywhere searching for unusual knowledge and with this point of view everywhere discovering facts and ideas that had generally been overlooked to understand the secret doctrine is a very large order it has to be read many many times it also has to be studied very carefully and certain barriers of terminology have to be one by one overcome by familiarity with early languages i think we can say however [Music] that it is built upon a certain ancient concept a concept which does show through most of the primitive writings of the religious peoples of antiquity particularly of the mesopotamian area and the far east her premise is that there was a basic doctrine concerning the creation of the universe establishment of the divine powers the formation of worlds and finally the generation of man that these ancient records were more valid than the scientific knowledge which was possessed in her time and of which most of our scientific knowledge is merely an extension in other words there is an exoteric doctrine that has arisen from the observation of the externals of things and there is an esoteric doctrine which has been perpetuated through the contemplation of the eternal and internal forces operating in the universe we are beginning to take cognizance of this we are beginning to realize that somewhere in the background of man's consciousness experience there was a general archetypal pattern man has within himself certain instinctive knowledge which he cannot always clearly express a knowledge which perhaps is not even available to him for the most part but a simple subjective realization of value and that somewhere in the root of his own consciousness is a mathematical formula the formula which explains his own existence that what we might term the search for knowledge is finally man searching for the key to unlock his own internal record of eternal fact that at various times individuals have to some measure or degree unlocked this inner storehouse cannot be denied that great systems of thought were established at ancient in ancient times that were valid is beginning to appear more reasonable to us and madame blavatsky's position was a very simple one that what we call essential knowledge has always been known has always existed and always will that this essential knowledge by its very nature however is not acceptable to any individual or group of individuals whose philosophy of life is built essentially upon materialism [Music] that it is not man's inability to know that is his stumbling block it is man's unwillingness to unlearn that which is not true but which he has come to accept over long periods of time a hasty acceptance of opinions or attitudes that are not substantial a willing allegiance to a pattern of knowledge which is not factual these attitudes lock the individual toward the uni toward the larger universe of the infinite probabilities of things man therefore has darkened his own insight by insisting that he already knows consciously things which he does not know he insists that knowledge is to be derived from the common experience of other persons like himself and that if enough persons who do not know agree upon something this something then becomes a known fact in other words we are consented confronted with the problem of how much ignorance do we have to stack up in order to achieve a mountain of truth that this knowledge has actually been held as an esoteric secret is intimated in the secret doctrine but a point also gradually unfolds if we are observant and thoughtful namely that what we term esoteric is not really a term for something that is unknowable or can be only known by a few the term more generally means simply a continuing knowledge of reality which is rejected that it is esoteric not because it cannot be known but because we refuse to recognize it therefore it remains a profound secret many things which we once held to be esoteric are now common knowledge because we have gradually revised our attitude toward that which we thought we knew nearly every scientific discovery that we make even now is more than a simple extension of some previous idea it is nearly always a statement that conflicts with a previous idea we grow when we outgrow a mistake and the land and world of knowledge is an area in which we are forever advancing by correcting previous beliefs accepting the fact that these beliefs were inadequate or unreasonable but that we did not know this to hold on to an idea that is inadequate after we know that it is inadequate it is no longer devotion it is just plain stupidity we are still locked therefore in the primary dilemma of the secret doctrine namely the belief that all knowledge must be attained by one slow plodding miserable inconsistent technique that we must gradually know or learn through forever setting up research projects of a particular kind or nature that we must learn and know by pounding upon the outside and surfaces of things rather than to recognize that while research projects are useful and very helpful their success is determined largely by the point of view upon which they are built a research project which says at the beginning that it can only advance according to rules already generally accepted and that it must come to no conclusions inconsistent with present knowledge might as well fold up its tents like the arabs and sneak silently away it is not going to achieve anything so in the 19th century where we had an orthodox theology on the one hand locked in literalism in the dots and titles of holy writ whereas bible students were far more concerned with the preservation of orthodoxies rather than the search for additional knowledge and on the opposite side scientists rising under the tremendous impetus provided by darwin and huxley were fighting to rescue the universe from a sickly mysticism while this conflict was going on no one was very much interested in the truth everybody thought they were everyone insisted the truth was his only purpose but it was very much like the famous story of the dove of peace that was trampled to death in the peace meeting there was really very little actual uh understanding or integrity beneath the search for larger knowledge many persons have tried to work out either in harmony with or in conflict with madame blavatsky's own premises just what the basis of her presentation of the eastern tradition might be [Music] madame on a number of occasions admitted that personally in her religious persuasion she was very much inclined to buddhism but she clearly points out in the secret doctrine that the secret doctrine is not buddhism and on this ground most buddhist sects will concur to many buddhist groups the secret doctrine is as mysterious as it is to christendom [Music] yet there is obvious fact in the background of this which must cause us to suspect that to a large measure at least the presentation of the material follows certain development of asiatic belief whatever might be madam's essential allegiances when in the presentation of her material she gropes for terms or attempts to find fortuitous analogies she most frequently turns either to buddhism or reformed hinduism we very seldom find her searching for her terms outside of this area also her tendency is to bring other forms of knowledge chinese chaldean egyptian greek into this pattern drawing them toward this central uh focus in this there is an interesting and rather valid structure of doctrine which does arise from buddhism for it was taught from the very beginning that gautama buddha's essential teaching was divided into two broad schools if we study the sutras or the sacred books of buddhism certainly those prior to the last great reformation under mahayana we find that buddha is a strict moralist we find that he refuses under any condition to explore the abstractions of cosmogony he refuses to discuss the natures of deities or the origins of worlds or the developments of species or types or kinds or races he declines entirely to expand any concept of the future state of man other than such concept as relates to the final extinction of negative individuality in the mahaparinavanic state thus buddha becomes a kind of philosophic idealistic ethical materialist he is concerned primarily only with the problem of man and with man only in the aspect of human suffering its cause and cure buddhism buddha took the public attitude that his only problem and the only problem that the world had to face and face head-on with every a bit of courage that was available the problem was how man could civilize himself how the human being could rise from the ignorance selfishness and fear which dominated his life and establish a firm inward life upon adequate value this was buddha's principal concern yet from the very beginning of his philosophy which was also in turn merely a reformed hinduism from the very beginning it was evident that a second school rose in the contemplation of buddhist philosophy we find in the bible the same implication in the new testament where jesus is said to have taught the multitude in parables but to his disciples he taught certain other things these certain other things have always been assumed to be the mysteries of his faith the esoteric part of the christian religion and it is this part that the gnosis claimed to have possessed and which is now uh being given some further consideration as a result of the discovery of the gnostic library at chenebaskian egypt but in buddhism it was assumed a firm maintained that buddha taught his disciples or his ahats these certain other things that to those whom he regarded as ready he gave a knowledge of universals that he also gave a knowledge of the great forces and processes of creation by means of which worlds are brought out of chaos and the great systems of evolutionary procedure that have been preserved through two theosophists through the secret doctrine in their famous uh concepts of rounds and races that this esoteric doctrine in buddhism did exist there seems every reason to affirm for the buddhist star hats were initiated in the september or the mysterious room or cavern of seven rooms which was believed to be a symbol of the human heart in any event buddhism is a living example of the point that madame levatsky attempted and affirmed that she could prove namely that there has been and is in the principal religions of the world a solid tradition that goes back thousands of years to the simple effect that religion is both an internal and an external mystery that there has always been a secret or esoteric instruction that this instruction is true and that this instruction covers not only the religious world but contains a full statement of the nature of the material universe its laws and energies and therefore covers the entire area normally assigned to science that therefore there is not only a science of nature but a science of human nature and a science of divine nature that the so-called esoteric tradition is the one and ultimate science the science of sciences through an understanding of which all other mysteries are solved and without which the individual plods desperately against areas of darkness or areas of chaos which he cannot organize with the faculties available to him as an ordinary person the secret doctrine then goes on to point out another situation which has been a subject of controversy since the dawn of human thought namely that the final solution to the mystery of knowledge lies in the disciplining and cultivating of a gamut of extra sensory perception that the faculties that we presently possess are not adequate for our understanding of the causal universe that although we may be able to extend our domain throughout the surface of nature that we may be able to travel to other planets that we may force our conquests into space itself that man's present a group of faculties limits him binds him holds him strictly to a certain condition of the universe which is called matter the beyond matter and such energies as display themselves in matter or are rather obviously revealed through matter outside of this man cannot cope with the universe and when he copes with energies even those that are revealed through matter he can discover their appearances their consequences as the wind moving up on the surface of water can be noted from the fact that it moves the water but the wind itself cannot be seen in the same way wherever we come upon the operation of energies in matter we can see the consequences of the activity of energy but we cannot see or estimate or fathom the mystery of that energy itself a point in case of course is electricity we know what it does we do not know what it is and even the greatest scientist today hesitates to attempt a formal definition of a commodity that is now used carelessly and easily throughout the world we seem to possess it but we do not possess any real knowledge of what it is we seem to conquer the world but having conquered it we suddenly awaken and find that we have no understanding of what the world is we have our own existence we live and grow and suffer and die but finally come to the conclusion that we do not know even our own identity thus there has to be some other form of knowledge some other way of solving this mystery or the mystery remains unsolvable science is inclined to take the attitude or was until very recently that the mystery simply is unsolvable that it cannot be attained that there is no actual answer and that what we call discovery is a groping towards the unknown with the hope with the optimistic conviction that in the course of some immeasurable pan of time we may discover that which we presently seek but that there is no reason to suppose that we are going to hasten towards the knowledge of infinites that this knowledge is simply beyond the capacity of man's finite uh faculties on the basis of the esoteric tradition madame blavatsky affirms that the answer lies in the cultivation of faculties latent in man that these faculties have always been known [Music] that arts and sciences for their cultivation have always been known but that the secrets of these arts or mysteries have not been generally communicated for the reason that they constitute not only the most advanced possible form of knowledge but to measure the most dangerous of all forms of knowledge for they bestow upon the possessor of them all of the power and authority and influence which absolute knowledge can confer and that in order that such knowledge should be made available it is first necessary that the us aspirant to such knowledge should demonstrate conclusively that they are beyond and above the abuse of what they know this was the burden of the greek mysteries and madame levatsky does not hesitate to point this out this also in its restoration as the platonic philosophy of england in the 19th century was restated by thomas taylor the one translator of the greeks who really had insight into the meaning of these ancient rites and ceremonies but madame blavatsky studying among the american indians observing the ruined monuments and symbols of central america wandering in the gobi desert of mongolia studying in the great palace of tashilampu talking and discoursing with the most learned yogans and vedantic students of india traveling everywhere in the muslim world in the christian world in the buddhist world and in the brahmana world was convinced that she had discovered clearly the landmarks of this esoteric discipline of life by means of which man alone can come to the appreception of truth madame levansky also realized that there is further proof of the availability of this extrasensory band in man's consciousness and this proof lies essentially in the sphere of classical mysticism there has always been a few persons who have possessed the power to demonstrate these extra sensory faculties to a degree there has been always somebody carrying on research or experimentation in this area there is also always existed in the world a group of people who by the peculiar validity of their mystical dedications to truth were able to break through the veil that the mind of the scholar could not penetrate and the scriptures of the world including our own and the old jewish scriptures all indicate the existence of prophets of wise ones of learned and good persons who communed with god or who went forth into the wilderness and fasted and prayed and received revelation [Music] that therefore we do have a fairly substantial body of evidence indicating that man by a certain kind of life by a certain devotion or dedication by conduct rather than by concept is able to attain an intimate a perception of spiritual mysteries not that he shall attain them fully or completely but that he does penetrate far enough to prove that there are powers within himself which can break through the boundaries set up by a materialistic way of life and that he can gradually come to know and to experience conditions of consciousness states of being areas of activity that are closed to the objective physical sensory perceptions was convinced that this burden of concept is also set forth in the original teachings of buddhism she is likely also to find it just as quickly in the brahmanic religious mysteries and she quotes and cross quotes time and time again to show the principles involved and the validity of the position which she holds and is able to show very clearly that in every important religion of the world both of civilized and uncivilized people the same essential belief has been held and that long before man knew what theology was he realized that the essence of religion was the unfolding of faculties within himself by which are not by which knowledge alone could be attained and that all knowledge must finally be brought to fruition by the release of conscious powers or faculties within the person that we cannot find the answer by loading the mind with objective phenomena that we can advance sciences certainly but these sciences advance on levels they do not lead us to the next superior thing they lead us only like the will of the wisp into some infinite diverse area of speculation they cannot bring us back again to the core of being in the early centuries immediately prior or perhaps at about the time of the christian era there was a great resurgence of mysticism in asia and this revival centered largely around what we term today mahayana buddhism by this revival the entire doctrine of buddha was opened up from within itself as though a great bud of light suddenly expanded prior to that time the external parts of the flower only were visible but suddenly it seemed that the internal heart was made obvious to the believer a great system of buddhistic metaphysics was loosed in asia a system which was intended to revive and restore that part of the instruction of buddha which was given privately to his ahats we know that there was a similar resurgence of mysticism in islam following a few centuries after the passing of the prophet muhammad we know desperately and definitely that there was a powerful trend towards mysticism in christianity but that this expansion in the christian faith was to a measure aborted because the tendency of mysticism was blocked and frustrated by the rise of the inquisition as it was however some mysticism did break through and we have evidence of it in the peculiar devotional life of certain early christian saints we also know that this mysticism broke through judaism particularly about the beginning of the christian era when the rise of kabbalistic speculation began and the orthodox jewish law was suddenly unfolded from within itself by a radiance such as that cast by the book of the splendors so in india in china in burma islam japan and korea these unfoldings were rather carefully noted this unfolding uh also had some certain historical locational factors tibet was long associated with a strongly esoteric buddhism it seemed as though this remote area almost out of contact with the rest of the world and living very largely in a highly contemplative state a state perhaps even exhilarated by the high altitudes and by the uh nature of the land in which these people live in any event in the buddhism of tibet or llamaism there seemed to be a peculiar descent of this esoteric tradition less veiled less completely hidden than in the buddhism of ceylon or of burma or of china in these monasteries upon the high peaks of the himalayas mystics studied the ancient scriptures wrote commentaries upon them and also carefully preserved the books that had come into their possession when buddhism in india was overrun by hinduism and the buddhist sects had to escape from the land of the beginning of their faith these escaping our hearts or departing believers took with them the ancient books and many did move into the north area escaping northward into the great mountain country which was religiously held in the highest veneration by members of nearly all eastern religions and here in tibet and nepal and bhutan and in some other remote regions libraries were built the old works were protected new copies were made of them and very early and choice manuscripts were preserved as sacred objects almost too precious even to be touched by human hands thus it is according to madame blavatsky she was able to discover the primitive texts which were to be the basis of her commentaries on the great stanzas of meditation here were the archetypal records of the primitive belief of religious man in asia here were statements probably in themselves rather crudely given but causing themselves to be almost immediately clothed in the most magnificent thoughts of the person who was able to decode the ancient symbols madam levatsky describes how these actual manuscripts were that they consisted principally of designs figures and emblems each of which however became part of an important sacred text when it was possible for the consciousness of the reader to fill in that which was not only between the lines but locked within the mysterious artistry of the originals this type of writing this type of symbolism uh was part of asia's way of doing things it has never greatly altered and in most of the libraries and museums of india and burma today similar writings can be seen i have seen many magnificent scrolls and roles in the libraries of rajputana and other areas of central india in which these same ancient truths are handed down from generation to generation almost unread seldom considered but carefully preserved for some better time that lies ahead this whole pattern makes sense in india it doesn't make much sense to us it would have made more sense to the greeks and latins but after we began to fragment knowledge after we began to break it up into schools and systems and after the rise of humanism which caused us to turn with infinite fascination with the physical phenomena of existence these old musty forgotten records just didn't mean anything we were so certain that the little that we knew was enough we were so tremendously concerned with a small discovery that we forgot that the great mysteries of life flowed on unsolved we were so proud of what little we did know that we forgot to be humble in the presence of the infinite expanse of unknowable which we had not even touched now in india and then through this whole area there was for a long time a mysterious school of the kala chakra the school that is supposed to have been revealed by nagajuna in the iron tower this school also mingled its streams with another very ancient eastern transcendentalism called tantra and out of the minglings of these different systems came a magic that little by little degraded into a sorcery but the great mysteries of the kala chakra or the wheel of time were in themselves valid and out of these mysteries came most of the secrets of yoga most of the ancient magical arts for the unfoldment of the locked potentials of human consciousness from this system in asia probably also came most of the disciplines and religious doctrines that finally reached the mediterranean and greek areas to cause the rise of mysticism in north africa the hermeticus monastics at the present time objectively and ecstatically the tantra is probably best represented in one of the powerful buddhist sects of japan that sect is the shin gong or the shin gun shoe this is called today by the same name as that which was given or many years ago to the book by by mr cenet a theosophist who studied with madame levatsky he published a book called esoteric buddhism when you were asked in the orient today particularly in japan or china or what is esoteric buddhism they will point to the equivalent of what in japan is the shin gong shu or the mysterious sect that was founded by the great japanese transcendentalist kobodaishi this was the school of the miracles and this was also the school uh which developed the great mandala systems the systems of the meditation [Music] manuals the systems of the esoteric powers of sounds of colors of letters and the forms the shin gong therefore while it is no longer a pure example of trans himalayan mysticism certainly is one of the surviving monuments to the existence of a great secret art in asia the art the mysterious science of the unfoldment of the powers in man by which he can know the now madame blavatsky in her own writings uh except in the case of these esoteric instructions to her disciples and personal students does not go too greatly or too deeply into what we would term today the shingong shoe or the zenshu systems of thought she was undoubtedly aware of them but to her the very probability of communicating them would likely result in a further complex for the students and disciples she realized that on the one hand these sects had already passed through certain deterioration in asia such as what had marked the descent and gradual decline of taoism and that furthermore they represented concepts and attitudes utterly beyond the comprehension of the average western person of the 19th century so she was content to point out that through the contemplation of the systems of the higher tantra it had been possible for the r hats adepts and lohans of the system to gradually restore the story of the universe and the story of man that this knowledge essentially came not from ordinary books not from ordinary communication with other persons but through inward meditation through the gradual strengthening of the resources of the person to the inner contemplation of the mysteries of universal procedure if these disciplines were accurately followed if the individual's interior faculties were properly opened they were just as reliable in their own world as our ordinary sense perceptions are in the material world and probably much more reliable very few people question what they see with their physical eyes nor is there any greater reason to question that which the individual can see if the eye of the dharma or the eye of the disciple is opened therefore there is an eye which sees into the causes of things just as surely as there are two eyes by means of which we see into the world of effects around us these two eyes making possible a certain stereoscopic uh dimensionalism in the things we see as the inner eye sees not in terms of dimension but in terms of quality it is not necessary that it be doubled but just as surely as man sees with this single eye his body is filled with light so the eye of the disciple or the student if it can be internally opened reveals to him the universe of causes the moment such a universal mystery is unfolded it becomes obvious that he is in the presence of values situations and conditions which simply cannot be communicated we have created a language a language which was essentially intended for the ordinary transactions of physical life we had originally gone a little deeper because we had based our earlier concepts of language upon the remnants of old esoteric traditions so through the classical world of thinking we did develop a by-language system or two languages for the administration of our affairs the egyptians had their common language and they also had a sarcoidolanguish and a language of emblemism for their priests as dr preston told me in the reading of egyptian hieroglyphics we are by no means certain that each glyph does not have two different meanings and that one of these meanings concerns itself with a deeper aspect of egyptian metaphysics this is not yet certainly known but it is quite probable that the rosetta stone was not the end of our search for the knowledge of the egyptian language we also know that through the medieval period we use what might be called the common language of various countries but scholars use latin as a language set apart from barter and exchange for the contemplation of abstraction we have no equivalent of this today true we have a larger vocabulary but this vocabulary has been built up almost entirely by the compounding of terms relating to physical phenomena therefore nearly everyone working with abstract or creative philosophical or religious problems has difficulties with wording there is no way in which we can be even reasonably sure that we can convey an abstract idea by means of words from one person to another zen does not even attempt it uh rather taking the attitude that all communication of essential knowledge must be by internal super physical faculties the same thing is true in every case of esotericism where gradually a knowledge of universal mystery unfolded it was necessary to build by degrees of vocabulary to interpret it the moment a mystery was placed in the common words of any people or placed in any readable or comprehensible language it ceased to be esoteric it then became part of the common body of knowledge where it was esoteric only as long as it was unwritten as long as it was communicated only to those having attained a certain esoteric standing themselves so the secret doctrine as h.p blavatsky unfolds the book cannot actually be regarded as an esoteric book she points this out very definitely it ceases to have esoteric status the moment it is printed but it does contain and i think research will justify this beyond any question of doubt a great deal of material that had been borderline esoteric material for a long time a material that was not entirely locked within the ancient schools or which had gradually over a period of time been legitimately released for these schools at various times in their development uh finding that humanity by its own evolutionary process had made certain natural attainments released levels of this knowledge [Music] releasing mostly such levels has had immediate utility for those evolving forms of life that required them but the shepherd guardians or the shepherd kings of ancient times guarded their flocks the shepherd priests with their symbolic symbol or symbolic emblem the shepherds crook or croissant uh definitely communicated to the sheep that which was necessary and so by degrees a great deal of knowledge that had once been locked within the in the university colleges and mystery temples of egypt greece and the near east came to be more generally known it is this gradual revelation that gave us for instance mathematics gave us astronomy gave us music gave us by degrees the secrets of ancient medicine and law made possible a variety of achievements for men the great moral and spiritual codes of the world were originally part of the mystery tradition but as man reached a point where he needed them they were revealed to him by the anointed and initiated teachers saviors sages prophets and seers of his race so man gradually gained a certain knowledge of these esoteric matters according to madame blavatsky the time came in the closing years of the 19th century when the tremendous advancement of material science when a new kind of world coming into existence built upon unfortunately an almost adamantine materialism certain further directives that these directives meant that for those who had the insight for those who had the natural information for those who realized the importance of a better kind of knowledge something had to be available man will never cry out to heaven for guidance sincerely without receiving guidance man never will be confused over knowledge if he is sincerely willing to accept ideas that are better than those of his time but it is essential always that the gate of the sheepfold as the temple of initiation was anciently called should always be opened that there should always be more knowledge than man normally uses so that in his emergency the individual can always find something better if he will seek where it is to act then as a tremendous counter-balancing force not for the majority but for those who were dedicated to a higher concept of life the uh the adepts of the eastern tradition uh resolved to make a revelation of knowledge making it in one of the most astute interesting and incomprehensible zen-like ways that you can possibly imagine and here's again where the secret doctrine has a very valuable psychological pattern to point out it is always possible to assume that a great teacher a great mahatma priest a great initiate could appear in the world improper person with all necessary credentials and be able to prove his reality his uh his integrity and his validity beyond question it would be perfectly conceivable that such a person could arise that this person could perform before any group of persons evidences of super physical attainments could reveal forms of knowledge and insight that simply could not be refuted that in the presence of the greatest skeptics this type of person uh could prove conclusively the reality of esoteric powers and faculties over material uh obscuration it is conceivable that this could happen that such an adept could raise the dead there could cause any phenomena that he wanted uh could force extensions of consciousness upon the benighted minds of other people that by degrees the authority power dominion of such a person could be so absolute and his power of self-protection so complete that he might even theoretically become ruler of the world if he so desired nothing could oppose him no secret could be kept from him no resistance offered by others could touch him therefore he would stand immovable but this very circumstance in itself did it occur would be absolutely faithful to the entire development of the human being because man by his own nature by his own needs must grow to certainty and this growth must arise through a series of constant changing within himself it would be a thousand times more detrimental for anyone to meddle with the trial and error patterns of human procedure than it would be for a parent to attempt to dominate a child after that child is old enough to take care of himself every effort to help would end in hindrance every effort to control or direct would frustrate the natural growth of the person and force him into the bondage which must always exist in which the weak is in slavery to the strong also the most important point of all would be that the development of the human faculties which must develop sequentially would be disturbed if for any reason a sudden enlightenment struck the individual by whose nature such an enlightenment was not justified thus every degree of knowledge every degree of insight must be earned all learning must arise from a yearning to know it cannot rise from a dictatorial impression of knowledge even if this knowledge is correct the experience of discovery is essential to the conscious growth of every creature if this experience is taken away from him by dogmatic or dictatorial means the individual is cheated out of his own inevitable need thus it would be no part of the esoteric school to attempt to save man from himself or to force a state of grace upon a creature whose own conduct did not justify it or whose own incentives did not voluntarily lead him to it so there could be no such a dogmatic dispensation set up it was by no means time for the tenth avatar to appear surrounded by glory because even if this resulted in immediate world peace the purpose of evolution would be frustrated because the purpose of evolution is that it shall end in peace but that this peace shall arise from the unfolding consciousness of the individual and not from dictatorial dictatorial legislations by arbitrary powers so in the presentation of the material in the secret doctrine there could be no essential emphasis upon authority the book was released to the world [Music] through the work of a person as frail as any other person as subject to curious moves and eccentricities as controversial and in some ways as inconsistent as anybody else it was a work which could be rejected with enthusiasm by any individual who wanted to pick it apart it was a work which could be utterly meaningless to the person who did not want to understand it it also could be utterly meaningless to an individual who was not interested enough to find out what it meant [Music] it brought no salvation or enlightenment to anyone on a platter it gave no assurance of anything it was simply set up as a point of inquiry it stood there to intrigue those who were already willing and inclined to be intrigued it could also lead the scholar to the further examination of things that he already wanted to know or it could cause him to declare that it was the greatest monument of superstition in modern times and cast it into the wastebasket this was exactly what was intended it could not be dogmatic it was not a revelation and was never meant to be a revelation it was however a another availability something that the individual might turn to might find intriguing and might for him summarize the long course of knowledge which he had already followed and give him certain incentives to investigate further into the unconditioned worlds that lay ahead actually the structure of the secret doctrine is divided into two essential parts of which the first is properly termed uh cosmological it has to do with the cosmogenesis or the formation of the universe out of its own roots in this concept is set forth practically all that is available in the wisdom of both east and west we find here the concepts and speculations of the greek astronomers and cosmologists we find everything from hesiod to ptolemy we find the contemplations of plato and the extraordinary investigations of pythagoras we find a careful estimation of the weights and merits of aristotle euclid and all the other group we also are given an insight into the points where these documents have been in the course of time either misinterpreted or intentionally distorted we are helped to understand how the translations of these ancient writings have been heavily influenced by indoctrination or by special beliefs or by antagonisms so that we cannot trust the modern prejudice translator as being in all cases a valid uh witness for the subject uh with which he is presumably concerned we also find the cosmogonies of the latest we find the ancient doctrines of the avestas the teachings of the chinese and the buddhists relating to the origin of the universe we are confronted with the problem which has always been the root of all cosmological uh uncertainty namely the possibility of a creation emerging from the absence of itself how did the beginning begin how was that which was not to engender that which was can we ever assume that there was a state in which nothing existed [Music] all of these speculations are finally brought together under the concept of the tibetan tantric system and the great laws of cycles the great processes of the days and nights of brahma the emergence of the universe as the great breath the setting up of the great geometric patterns in space by which worlds were generated all of these processes are discussed and described not originally inasmuch as there is really no indication that this represented an original system devised by the writer it is simply a magnificent gathering together of threads of strands of fragments until a common form is established into which the systems of the greeks the hindus the chinese can all be fitted into a master concept a concept which includes them all leaves out nothing and requires no essential compromise of basic ideas out of this entire concept comes this tremendous pattern of the living universe of a universe extending far beyond anything that we can conceive a universe of systems upon systems all of them essentially great units of consciousness and that from the basic consciousness of each of these units vast systems of creation emerge these systems always within the consciousness which created them and within all these patterns the infinite divergence of individuality within unity much of this pattern is based upon the great separatic tree of the kabbalah it is also the great tree of the vedic mysteries and we have the same concept arising in mahayana buddhism in the scriptures which have to deal with the establishment of the buddhas in all of the great directions of space the whole theory is defined and developed in the concept of a world compendium of cosmological doctrine and of course the important point that arises from it is that all of the different systems will fit into this one pattern that therefore there is much evidence that there was originally one system that this one system was divided not in meaning but in term or gradually fragmented through interpretation and the gradual descent of ideas through orders of persons not capable of fully understanding them until difference arises as a human error not as a cons of an inconsistency in essential principles out of this tremendous cosmogony of things emerges esoteric anthropology the emergence of man his development in nature the great question that science is still pondering and will probably ponder for some time namely the relationship between the person and his body that the darwinian theory or the mandelian law might apply to the body of man no one seriously questions but whether this pattern is applicable to the consciousness of man is another and far more serious doubt the esoteric tradition therefore man emerges as a principle to be embodied he represents a universal fragment or flame from infinite life containing within himself the infinite potential of the absolute absolute unfoldment of the total universe within himself he is therefore seminal as the oracles of zoroaster called he is a seed a seed from which all creation can ultimately be born this seed enveloped in matter sold in the dark earth of substance is finally limited in body the great story of anthropology is therefore the involution of man which is the descent of consciousness into form the gradual obscuration of consciousness by form finally evolution or the gradual restoration of consciousness from paul evolution being essentially at this time a two-fold procedure either a procedure based upon the long unfolding path of future growth by which over a vast period of time man will gradually collect the fragments of his own consciousness within his own personality unite them bring them into harmony and gradually create an abstract vehicle or veyham for the expression of that consciousness rather than the concrete mind that he now uses the second way according to the esoteric tradition is that the individual shall achieve evolution or the release of consciousness from matter by the disciplines of the esoteric schools these esoteric disciplines constituting the meditative and contemplative disciplines of the kalasharka or the great school of the turning of the wheel of time the turning of the wheel in this case simply represents the reverse motion or the reversal of that motion by means of which man has been drawn into a state of materiality as he is drawn into matter by a certain motion as plato says he is by the reversal of this motion able to extricate himself from matter this discussion and the problems involved in it constitute the natural development of anthropology which moves gradually from the consideration of man as the ampropos or the being the person to the development of man as anthropos son of anthropos in the gnostic system namely the emergence of the psychic man the man of mystery the invisible man the man of crystalline glass of ancient alchemy therefore out of the mystery of matter rises the mystery of man as a psychic being by psychic in this case we do not mean psychic in the sense of possessing psychic powers but rather as the psychological psyche the soul man [Music] and the point of importance being that man will ultimately move his center of function his center of awareness or his center of polarization from the physical focus to the psychic focus when he does this he will find that he is living in a new world he will find that gradually the old world will fade away as the ancient forces perished in the void according to the zohar man therefore does not dissolve a world but the world seems to dissolve itself the individual does not depart apparently into some other place he stays and the world leaves him actually however the entire release of the psychic entity is a conscious living achievement of that which for most persons is possible only in the transition of death therefore the prophets of old are said to have been taken to god without death because actually and esoterically the ritual of initiation and the ritual of the death ceremonies were regarded as equally symbolic of the same psychic procedure in man thus the release of man from body is a resurrection a birth anew into a psychic existence an existence in which soul power dominates all other considerations the achievement of this is possible according to the kala chakra only to the aha or the adept only to the initiate of the mysteries and this way of initiation is not open to the inquirer there is no way in which at this time these teachers can be reached or communicated with by those other than the ones they themselves choose the problem of choice therefore rests with a force or faculty beyond us and the individual can only rely upon the development of his own integrity as a means of gradually coming in contact with these processes the reason for this again is perfectly obvious that under the present existing materialism while our psychic code is what it is while our moral levels are what they are while our sense of ethics remains in its comparatively undeveloped state any possibility of the extension of our faculties or the increase of knowledge would only further hazard the survival of our species there could be no possible way to prevent the abuse of force unless the force was guarded in its own way by the only guardian that can protect force and that is the absolute integrity of the individual therefore until the person is above misuse he will never be able to secure the power which he can misuse what he might commonly regard today as the accidental attainment of a transcendent or transcendental power merely means that perhaps from one of many possible causes there may be flashes of insight or there may be temporary contacts with transcendental factors but these are not dangerous for the most part unless they are violently misunderstood they are not dangerous because the individual cannot control them even though he has the experience he cannot repeat it even though he sees something he cannot systematize what he has seen nor can he interpret it correctly therefore if there is a physiological or psychological experience the individual is still protected he is protected by the fact that the experience may reveal to him some meaning some value greatly to be desired some hope of future growth greatly to be longed for but it does not provide him in any instance with the machinery by means of which you can control it this machinery belongs only to the deepest aspects of the various tantra or of the kala chakra school it belongs to disciplines and ways of life which have to be lived and the individual who is not able to live them cannot endanger himself except by delusion he can imagine things that are not so and greatly injure his own life that is why so much of this material and all of the actual keys to it even in asia today where there are schools working with it are we are held in secret because the the proof of man's inability to handle knowledge has come merely in this physical world what we have done in the field of electronics is obvious evidence that we cannot be entrusted with the thunderbolts of zeus we cannot be entrusted with powers over energies a million times more splendid than any atomic vision electronic process we know today we cannot be trusted but nature also knows that when we get toward the world of causation behind which lies the secret doctrine this bridge between the objective and the subjective in our own consciousness is guarded it is guarded by a mutable natural law that we can do absolutely nothing about and if we would cross this bridge we must be like the egyptian entering the wonderful fabled lands of amenti we must have the right word to the keeper of the gate we must be able to answer the right questions and we must answer them correctly we must have received that degree of knowledge which enables us to make this transition otherwise we could not be trusted very far or very long but nature is not locking man away from something that he deserves for the simple reason that the whole process of nature is accomplishing this end every living thing according to the esoteric school is equally moving toward salvation there are no lost souls there is no individual who deserves better than he gets there is no person who is all ready for knowledge and no one has noticed it the fact of the matter is all these processes occur within the individual and it is only through himself that he can enter the magic world of the esoteric tradition now there is much more that can be said about the subject but that's about all we can do in the time we have and i think that is perhaps the great lesson that is locked within the story of the secret doctrine and thank you very kindly and we'll see you again one of these days