Elementary Theosophy

by a Student

Chapter 1: Elementary Theosophy

Every one knows that the great religions of the world differ from each other; and also that in respect to the path of life in which they tell men to walk, they resemble each other. They present also many other resemblances and identities. It has not yet occurred to our scholars that there may be one great religion of which all these are parts.

Nations have always differed in their characteristics, the difference being sometimes due to the region in which they dwelt, sometimes to other causes. One people would be imaginative, another philosophical, another simple; one pastoral, another nomadic; one peaceful, another active and warlike. One dwells amid smiling plains, another by the rock-ribbed sea.

If we were to tell some story of science, say about atoms and molecules, to the classes of a school, we should not use the same language to the little children as to the elders. To every class we should tell the story differently. If we were wise we should illustrate it from the games and stories that the children already knew. To the very little ones we might make the atoms talk and play, and so we might teach chemistry in the guise of a fairy tale. To the children that were older we might picture the atoms as marbles and balls; to artistic children we might dwell most on the colors and sounds resulting from the movements and groupings of atoms and molecules. And to the higher classes we should begin to introduce some of the abstruse mathematics which are concerned in these questions. We might put the case so differently to the highest and lowest classes that anyone who heard us talking to both might not guess that we were talking about the same things. Yet we should be. And if the children, on going home, tried to tell their parents in their own words what they had heard, the unlikeness would become still greater, for they would be adding and leaving out.

The word theosophy is a blend of two Greek words. Together they mean "divine wisdom," and also wisdom concerning divine things. There is a similar Sanskrit compound, Brahmavidya, properly meaning the same things.

Theosophy itself is that complete story of the world and man, of which a part has been told to every people, a part suited to their needs and development and peculiarities, and told in language appropriate to their understanding.

But however simply it had to be told, there were always some among every people whose comprehension ran beyond that of their fellows, and who had prepared themselves to follow the path of life more steadfastly. To such, more was told. And so we find everywhere this fact of two doctrines, one for the multitude and one for the few -- that latter, for certain reasons mentioned elsewhere, always told under pledge of secrecy. Jesus Christ, for example, said that to the multitude he spoke in simple parables like the fairy stories of our illustration; but that to the elect he spoke fully the Mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven like the abstruse mathematics of our illustration.

Sometime in the near future, scholars will be compelled by the force of their own facts to recognize the common container and source of the world's religions. Their researches would immediately be easier and more fruitful if they would but take its existence as a hypothesis only. Prosecuting their studies in its light they would soon be rewarded by seeing emerge from the confusion the majestic outlines of the religion-philosophy now known as theosophy. But those who wish to understand it need not wait till then, nor need they proceed by that method.

Table of Contents | Next