Quest Magazine

by Richard Smoley

Originally printed in the Winter 2011 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Smoley, Richard. "God and the Great Angel." Quest  99. 1 (Winter 2011): 24-28.

 Who is the God we worship? Is he really the supreme creator of the universe, or merely an impostor or a fiction?

Such questions seem sacrilegious to believers, but they have been surfacing for millennia. The Jews contend that their God, Yahweh or Jehovah, is the Supreme Being, who deigned to communicate with them and them alone in the covenant at Sinai. Christians and Muslims, their spiritual descendants, have taken up the claim—while insisting that their revelations are the final and complete versions. All of these religions, in their dominant forms, insist that any other god either does not exist or is a demon in disguise.

Sometimes, however, the charges have been reversed to say that the monotheistic God of the Abrahamic faiths is not what he is claimed to be. One of them was H. P. Blavatsky. She writes: "If we are taken to task for believing in operating 'Gods' and 'Spirits' while rejecting a personal God, we answer to the Theists and Monotheists: Admit that your Jehovah is one of the Elohim, and we are ready to recognize him. Make of him, as you do, the Infinite, the one and the Eternal God, and we will never accept him in this character. Of tribal Gods there were many; the One Universal Deity is a principle, an abstract Root-Idea which has nought to do with the unclean work of finite Form" (Secret Doctrine, I, 492n.; emphasis here and in other quotations is in the original). Blavatsky is not denying that the God of the Abrahamic religions exists; rather she is saying that, contrary to what these religions claim, he is not the sole and unique Supreme Being.

In this she echoes the Gnostics of antiquity, who said that the god who created the physical world was the Demiurge (from the Greek d?miourgos, "craftsman"), a second- or third-degree divine emanation who falsely claimed to be the true God. Some Gnostic texts call him Ialdabaoth, a name of uncertain etymology. One common suggestion is "child of chaos" (cf. Secret Doctrine I, 197); another possibility is "begetter of hosts" (Barker, Great Angel, 174). A Gnostic text called Apocryphon of John says of Ialdabaoth: "And he is impious in his madness which is in him. For he said, 'I am God and there is no other God beside me,' for he is ignorant of his strength, the place from which he had come" (Robinson, 105). This is clearly mocking the First Commandment in Exodus 20:2-3: "I am the Lord thy God. . . . Thou shalt not have any other gods before me." [*] Blavatsky equates Yahweh or Jehovah with Ialdabaoth (Secret Doctrine I, 197; cf. Isis Unveiled II, 183ff.).

The origins of Gnosticism, the great adversary of proto-catholic Christianity in the early centuries of the present era, have been hard to trace. Various authorities have sought for its sources in Iranian, Egyptian, and Greek religion, but these views all have serious defects. Margaret Barker, a British biblical scholar with solid mainstream credentials (she is a former president of the Society for Old Testament Study), argues that Gnosticism actually arose out of Judaism (Barker, Great Angel, 167). In fact she argues that Gnosticism is a descendant of the religion of Israel of the First Temple period (c. 950—586 BC).

The conventional view of Judaism in this era is derived from the Hebrew Bible as it now stands. The children of Israel made a covenant with Yahweh to worship him alone, but they kept reneging and worshipping the strange gods of their Canaanite neighbors. Yahweh periodically punished them with invasions by great powers such as Assyria and Babylon . Nonetheless, the Israelites continued to backslide, even defiling the Temple in Jerusalem , which had to be periodically purged.

The most dramatic of these purges took place in 621 bc, under Josiah, king of Judah . Worship in Jerusalem had gone so far astray, according to the Bible, that the Temple had fallen into disrepair and needed to be rebuilt. During this restoration, the lost scroll of the law of Moses was supposedly discovered and read to Josiah. "And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the book of the law, that he rent his clothes" (2 Kings 22:11). Shocked by how far his people had strayed from this law, Josiah "commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the grove, and for all the host of heaven: and he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron" (2 Kings 23:4). Baal (a Canaanite god whose name simply means "lord"; his real name was Hadd: Patai, 45) is familiar to readers of the Old Testament as a rival god to Yahweh, but the "grove" and "the host of heaven" are puzzling. They are, however, extremely relevant to our story, and we shall return to them.

Most biblical scholars believe that the scroll read to Josiah was not a rediscovered ancient text but a composition written for the occasion. This text is generally identified with Deuteronomy. It is the first part of what is called the Deuteronomic history, which also includes Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings. The prevailing scholarly view of this history is that its first version was composed in Josiah's reign and came to a stirring climax with the restoration of the true worship of Yahweh at that time. But the history does not stop here. It continues down through the death of Josiah in 609 bc and the sack of the Temple by the Babylonians in 586 bc. For this reason a second, revised edition of the Deuteronomic account is postulated; it would have been written during the Babylonian exile (586—538 BC).

All of this is, as I say, widely held by mainstream scholars. Even so, they generally accept this Deuteronomic work as a broadly accurate account of the history of Israel in the period of the First Temple . Barker disagrees, saying that the Deuteronomic history was written by innovators who radically altered the Jewish religion and rewrote history to reflect their views. Moreover, the Josianic "reform" of 621 was itself a radical restructuring of the faith. Up to that time, she suggests, the Israelites had worshipped a trinity of gods: El, the high, absolute God; Yahweh, the national god of Israel ; and Asherah, Yahweh's consort. Contrary to what the current version of the Bible says, worship of this trinity was not an aberration, but the nation's standard religion up to that time. The Deuteronomic reform purged the goddess Asherah and conflated El with Yahweh, so that the national god of Israel was now equated with the high God. Monotheism as we know it was born.

These facts have been obscured, Barker says, because all texts in the present-day Old Testament were either written or edited by supporters of this new monotheistic faith. Nevertheless, some biblical texts may retain traces of the original scheme. One of these is Daniel 7:13-14, written in the second century bc: "I saw in the night visions, and behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away." In Christian theology, the Father is the "Ancient of days" and Jesus Christ is the "Son of man"—but what could it have meant in its original Jewish context? For Barker, the Ancient of Days here could be a relic of El, the transcendent God, from the religion of the First Temple . The "Son of Man" would then be Yahweh, the national god of Israel (Barker, Great Angel, 153-55). The Christians did not make up this mythos; their sole innovation was to equate the "Son of Man" with the man Jesus. Or, if we are to believe the Gospels, Jesus himself made this identification.

Even more remarkably, Barker says there may have originally been no distinction between Yahweh and the Angel of Yahweh. As she points out, many texts in the Old Testament equate the two, for example Judges 2:1: "Now the angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, 'I brought you up from Egypt, and brought you into the land that I had promised to your ancestors. I said, 'I will never break my covenant with you.'" In Genesis 22, with its story of the sacrifice of Isaac, it is "the angel of Yahweh" that calls to Abraham out of heaven (Gen. 22:11), but in the end Abraham names the place where this happened "Yahweh-yireh," or "Yahweh is seen" (Gen. 22:14). In Genesis 48:15-16 Jacob says, "God, before whom my ancestors Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long to this day, the Angel which has redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads." In short, "the bulk of the evidence suggests that the Angel of Yahweh and Yahweh had been identical" (Barker, Great Angel, 35).

Sometimes Yahweh was described as being incarnated in the Davidic king, as we learn in Chronicles' account of Solomon's coronation: "And all the assembly blessed the Lord God of their fathers, and bowed their heads and worshipped the Lord and the king" (1 Chron. 29:23). If this was the case, and the tradition had survived among the people of Israel if not in the official cult of the Second Temple (539 bc—ad 70), it would explain why the Gospels stress that Jesus was a descendant of David: as the messiah, he would be the embodiment of Yahweh as the old kings of Judah had been.

These points are highly muted in the current Hebrew Bible, Barker argues, because its texts all passed through the hands of reformers like those who wrote the Deuteronomic history and Second Isaiah (Isaiah 40-55 is generally regarded to be the work of a different man from the prophet of the first thirty-nine chapters of that book). Indeed when Second Isaiah writes, "I am Yahweh, and there is none else, there is no God beside me" (Isa. 45:5), he is not stating a conventional truth but making a revisionistic theological statement.

What, then, of the goddess Asherah? Her name is probably derived from a phrase from the Ugaritic language spoken in Syria in biblical times: atirat-yammi, "she who treads upon Sea," "Sea" being a personified chaos monster (Cross, 66-67). Canaanite myth usually portrayed her as consort of the high god, El (Cross 15, 37). In First Temple Judaism, however, she appears to have been the consort of Yahweh: dedicatory inscriptions from that era have been found of the form "Blessed be X to Yahweh and his Asherah" (Barker, Great Angel, 55).

The Hebrew Bible sometimes uses asherah not as a proper name but as a common noun for a cult object representing the goddess, possibly a crudely carved wooden image. Indeed one ancient Jewish tradition says that the asherah was either a tree or a tree with a cult object beneath it. Hence translators have rendered asherah variously as "tree" and "grove." Suddenly we remember the Josianic reform: one of the things thrown out of the Temple was a "grove." This was obviously not a literal grove. Almost certainly it was an image of Asherah (Barker, Great Angel, 55).

One interesting piece of evidence about goddess worship in First Temple Judaism appears in Jeremiah 44:17-18. After the Temple's destruction, people who "had burned incense to other gods" tell Jeremiah: "We will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense to the queen of heaven and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil. But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine." This passage indicates that the worship of the goddess had long been established in Jerusalem and that some, perhaps many, in Judah believed that the Temple was destroyed not because it had been profaned by her worship (as Jeremiah said) but because her worship had been abandoned (Barker, Great Angel, 51).

Who was this Queen of Heaven? Some scholars, such as Raphael Patai in his Hebrew Goddess, suggest that she was Astarte or possibly Anath, two other Semitic deities (Patai, 62—65). Barker, however, argues that the Queen of Heaven was Asherah. Certainly these goddesses were sometimes conflated by the worshippers themselves: a plaque from the Egyptian New Kingdom representing a Semitic goddess names her as both Asherah and Astarte (along with another Semitic goddess called Anat; Dever, 178). Although she was dethroned by Josiah, Barker says, Asherah was never forgotten by the Jewish people. She changed form, mutating first into a personified "Wisdom" (cf. Prov. 8), and later into the Shekhinah, the feminine "presence" of God revered by the Kabbalists. Indeed the medieval Kabbalists taught that the restoration of her worship would inaugurate the messianic age (Barker, Great Angel, 51).

As for the "hosts of heaven," again most scholars agree that the ancient Hebrews envisaged Yahweh as enthroned among a heavenly host (the Hebrew word for "hosts," by the way, is ts'vaoth or Sabaoth, a possible source for the name Ialdabaoth). Barker portrays this host in more precise terms. She notes that one of the central symbols of Judaism is the seven-branched candelabrum known as the menorah. Modern-day Jews often have similar objects in their homes to celebrate Hanukkah, but technically these are not menorahs; they are hanukkiyot or Hanukkah candelabra. They have nine branches, whereas the one in the Temple had seven. Indeed Jews in antiquity were forbidden to have seven-branched candelabra: that was for the Temple alone (Barker, The Older Testament, 221).

The symbolism of the seven is extremely important, and to esotericists it is fairly obvious: it represents the five planets known to antiquity (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) as well as the sun and the moon. It is extremely likely that the menorah represented this "host of heaven." We do not know what image of the "host" Josiah would have cast out in his purge, but we do know that the symbolism of the seven remained alive and well in Judaism. In the postexilic period the prophet Zechariah has a vision of the menorah with seven branches. An angel asks him, "Knowest thou not what these be? . . . they are the eyes of the Lord, which run to and fro throughout the earth" (Zech. 3:5, 10). The symbolism reappears in Revelation, written in the first century ad: "I saw seven golden candlesticks; And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man" (Rev. 1:12-13). Theosophists can relate these seven to the Dhyan-Chohans without any great difficulty.

Thus it is possible that ancient Judaism had a schema of a supernal trinity consisting of El, Yahweh, and Asherah, and a lower set of seven "eyes of the Lord" equated with the seven planets as then known. Astonishingly, this is practically identical to the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, with its ten sefirot or principles, three supernal or "unmanifest" and seven lower or "manifest" (see diagram).

According to Barker's view of Judaism in the Second Temple , the radical monotheists who wrote Deuteronomy and Second Isaiah won the day, and their marginalized opponents preserved a kind of antitradition that is represented in works such as the pseudepigraphical 1 Enoch and in Gnosticism. The Gnostics, repudiating Judaism, would also have repudiated Yahweh, who in their eyes had usurped the position of the true, supernal God, much as Blavatsky claims; hence the stupid, arrogant Ialdabaoth.

Even so, more mainstream forms of Judaism preserved echoes of the older schema in their notion of a deuteros theos or "second God," or the immanent aspect of God. The first-century Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria, borrowing a term from Greek philosophy, called this "second god" the Logos. (Logos is frequently translated as "word," as in the opening of the Gospel of John, but it is more accurately characterized as the structuring principle of consciousness.) Jewish mystical literature from this era represents this "second god" as the mysterious angel Metatron, the "angel of the presence." (The etymology of this name is doubtful, "before the throne.") For Barker, Metatron is merely a mutated form of the original Yahweh—who was not originally imagined as distinct from the angel of the presence.

Most scholars agree that this concept of a deuteros theos was widespread in Judaism of the first century ad. Barker differs in arguing that it had always existed in Judaism. Philo's innovation, she says, was simply to connect this "second god" with the logos of Greek thought. The innovation of Christianity was to argue that this logos was embodied in Jesus, as Yahweh may have been in the kings of the old Davidic dynasty. Hence the emphasis on Jesus as the "son of David."

Barker's portrait of this Temple theology, as she calls it, could clarify a great deal about the history of Western religion. It explains why Jesus could have attained quasi-divine status very soon after his death (cf. Phil. 2:6-11): he would have been the anointed one, the embodiment of Yahweh. It also explains why the Gnostics would have had such an ambivalent, not to say hostile, attitude toward Yahweh. And it goes far toward providing a protohistory of the Kabbalah, which would then be, not an importation of Gnostic or Neoplatonic ideas into Judaism (as various scholars, including Gershom Scholem, have argued), but the survival of the old First Temple theology in an esoteric form.

Why should we today care about such arcane points, which are so far from our life and experience? Actually they are not. Monotheism as it has come down to us in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam has caused endless amounts of grief and bloodshed. Perhaps this conflict is rooted in an underlying contradiction in monotheistic theology: the idea that there is only one God, but that this God has chosen to reveal himself exclusively to my people (or religion) and not to any others. Stated so baldly, this view makes little sense, as Blavatsky, who derided the absolutistic claims of the Abrahamic faiths, well understood. But to a degree it is still held by all these religions, and it is not surprising that religious warfare over the last two thousand years has chiefly taken place in the parts of the world where these faiths are dominant.

Blavatsky's views do not coincide exactly with those of Margaret Barker. Barker is a biblical scholar and is principally concerned with these ideas as they have evolved over the course of centuries, while Blavatsky sometimes speaks as if this upstart Jehovah has a metaphysical reality. In this she resembles Kyle Griffith, author of the underground classic War in Heaven, which claims that the gods of the conventional religions are "Theocrats"—parasitic beings who maintain their existence on the astral plane with energy derived from the worship of devotees.

Whether we ourselves go this far is a matter of individual choice. But I personally believe that the great monotheistic faiths are currently seeing their grandiose and exclusivistic claims unmasked and increasingly derided. The rise of fundamentalism is in many ways a response to this trend: as a religion loses its hold over a populace, the remaining followers become more and more isolated, embittered, and extreme.

A curious Jewish mystical text known as 3 Enoch, dating from the early centuries of the Christian era, describes how Metatron is removed from his throne and demoted to the same rank as the other angels. This may reflect an attempt to reduce Metatron's status in the theology of the time, which was getting too close to that of God himself (Odeberg, 85-88). Whether or not that is the case here, such a fate sooner or later befalls all gods—that is to say, all attempts to conceptualize that which is beyond concepts. We may need these concepts, because that is how our minds work, but sooner or later we will conclude that they are nothing more than that, and we put them on the shelf alongside the other concepts in our mental closets. Only then, perhaps, will we be able to glimpse beyond them.

References

Barker, Margaret. The Great Angel: A Study of Israel's Second God. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 1992.

——. The Hidden Tradition of the Kingdom of God. London : Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2007.

——. The Older Testament: The Survival of Themes from the Ancient Royal Cult in Sectarian Judaism and Early Christianity. London : Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1987.

Blavatsky, H.P. The Secret Doctrine. 3 vols. Wheaton : Quest, 1993 [1888].

Cross, Frank Moore. Canaanite Myth and Biblical Epic. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973.

Dever, William G. Did God Have a Wife? Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Eerdmans, 2005.

. Self-published, 1988: http://www.scribd.com/doc/8146891/War-in-Heaven-by-Kyle-Griffith; accessed Feb. 3, 2010.

Kuyt, Annelies. The "Descent" to the Chariot. Tübingen, Germany : Mohr Siebeck, 1995.

Odeberg, Hugo. 3 Enoch or the Hebrew Book of Enoch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928.

Patai, Raphael. The Hebrew Goddess. 3d ed. Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 1990.

Robinson, James M., ed. The Nag Hammadi Library in English. 1st ed. San Francisco : Harper & Row, 1977.

The theology of the First Temple according to Margaret Barker. The supernal god, El, was worshipped along with Yahweh, the national god of Israel , and Yahweh's consort Asherah. Below them are the "host of heaven"—probably the five planets known at the time (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) along with the sun and the moon. The scheme resembles the Kabbalistic Tree of Life ( far right). The top triangle contains the "supernal" or "unmanifest" principles: Keter (Crown), Hokhmah (Wisdom); and Binah (Understanding). The lower seven principles are associated with the planets: Hesed (Mercy) with Jupiter, Gevurah (Strength) with Mars, Tiferet (Beauty) with the sun, Netzach (Victory) with Venus, Hod (Glory) with Mercury, and Yesod (Foundation) with the moon. Malkut (Kingdom) is the earth. Binah is usually associated with Saturn.

Drawing of an Egyptian New Kingdom plaque from the Winchester College Collection. It shows the goddess riding on a lion and listing her three names: Qudshu ("holy one," another name for Asherah), Anat, and Astarte. Her Egyptian-style wig also appears in many of her images from Canaan. From William G. Dever, Did God Have a Wife?

 by Edward Abdill

Originally printed in the Winter 2011 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Abdill, Edward. "Desire and Spiritual Selfishness." Quest  99. 1 (Winter 2011): 21-23, 39.

In fragment 1 of The Voice of the Silence we read, "Kill out desire; but if thou killest it take heed lest from the dead it should again arise." But if we had no desire to act, we would become the living dead. Surely that is not what the text is suggesting.

The Sanskrit word for "desire" is kama. According to Theosophical teaching, kama is one of the seven principles or aspects of human nature. These are localized fields within universal fields. Each of us is a microcosm, a miniature macrocosm, and as such we contain within us all the principles that the universe contains. Although the fields are nonmaterial, each one is associated with a type of matter that responds specifically to it. We can see matter being affected by a field when we observe a bar magnet close to iron filings. The filings line up along the field. The magnetic field visibly affects iron filings, but it does not visibly affect other material. The iron filings are a kind of test object that reveals the presence of the magnetic field.

The etheric double, a field closely associated with the physical body, affects protoplasm. This can be seen in the incubating chicken egg: a pulsation begins at the exact spot in the egg where the heart will be formed. The field "molds" the heart in the same way that the magnetic field "molds" the iron filings.

In addition to the etheric field, which affects the physical body, we have emotional, mental, and spiritual fields. Each of these has a particular type of matter that responds to it. Nonetheless, all these fields affect the physical body in some way. Perhaps that is because from a Theosophical perspective there is only a single field acting in different ways on seven different states of matter. Could it be that this ultimate unified field is consciousness itself?

A powerful component of the emotional field is kama, loosely translated as "desire." Essentially, kama is our emotional nature. It includes, but is not limited to, craving and desire of any kind. We may crave physical sensation, food, drink, companionship, prestige, power, or a soul mate. We may even crave fine art and music. Craving is not the same as appreciation. To appreciate fine art and music is not the same as craving them. The problem is the attachment to the objects of craving–the "I-can't-live-without-it" feeling. These attachments will inevitably cause us pain. The indisputable fact is that everything changes, both in the physical and in the psychological world. "This, too, shall pass" has no exceptions, not even in the subjective realm of the psyche. If we are attached to or identified with anything, psychological pain is inevitable when the object of our desire changes. How easy it is to see this, and yet how extraordinarily difficult it is to accept it.

In directing us to "kill out desire," The Voice of the Silence is not asking us to kill out emotion. If you read The Mahatma Letters, you will discover that the Masters Koot Hoomi and Morya show strong feelings. They are not cold, emotionless people. In letter 92 we read that Blavatsky's glowing description of Morya as "an Apollo of Belvedere" caused him to "start in anger, and break his pipe while swearing like a true Christian." (References to The Mahatma Letters in this article are to the chronological edition, edited by A. T. Barker and Vicente Hao Chin, Jr.)

In addition to our emotions we have minds. This mind—known in Theosophy as manas–can become focused on and identified either with buddhi, the spiritual nature, or with kama. When it is identified with buddhi, it is called buddhi-manas, and along with consciousness itself, atma, it is said to constitute the reincarnating individual self. But when the mind is focused on and identified with kama, it is called kama-manas. This is the animal soul or the lower self, and it perishes sometime after death.

Since we are localizations of universal fields, does this mean that the universe behaves as we do? If not, what is the difference?

To say that atma-buddhi, the most spiritual aspect of reality, "desires" anything would be misleading. It would be more accurate to say that atma-buddhi wills something. It is intentionality rather than desire. While these two things are related, they are quite different. In the universal sense, intentionality involves what is truly right for the whole. That is quite different from personal desire. So we might say that the one is similar to or a reflection of the other, but we can no more say they are identical than that the reflection of the moon on the water is the moon. Atma-buddhi wills the universe into existence. It desires nothing. If we identify with kama, we may use our willpower to get what we want. If we identify with buddhi, the divine will may be expressed through us. In that case, the divine will neutralizes personal desire.

The personal ego, the "me," is composed of our bodies and what might be called our "thinking/feeling" nature, kama-manas.

Kama is an essential part of our nature. It propels us to act. If we did not act, we would wither away and die. Acting generates karma, and the karmic results of our actions enable us to learn. Some believe they should not act to help others on the grounds that this is interfering with that person's karma. But the wise have told us that inaction in a deed of mercy is a deadly sin. It is not a desire to act that causes a problem; rather it is our identification with our desires and our attachment to the objects of our desires. The following example may help illustrate this point.

Let us say that we have planned out our day. Even if the tasks before us are unpleasant, we want our plan to go as we have set it up. We want to finish our work; we want to finish it on time; and we want to have a feeling of satisfaction with a job well done. Yet, to paraphrase the poet Robert Burns, "the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry." When they do, we are likely to become upset. The upset comes because we are attached to the desire to have things go as we planned them. Avoiding attachment to desire does not mean that we should not act. It would be foolish to say that that we should do nothing or that we do not care about our plans. We do care. However, if our plans are blocked, can we accept that fact even if we are not happy about it? Can we say, "What needs to be done now?" and get on with it without emotional upset? Can we say, "Few things matter much, and most things don't matter at all" and mean it? If we cannot, we are attached to and identified with our desire.

Whenever we feel angry, upset, fearful, anxious, or frustrated, we are reacting to blocked desire, kama. Kama is not only a desire to possess something; it can also be a desire to reject something. We may desire to possess a lover, but we might just as well desire to be free of an enemy. Minor flare-ups of kama happen so often during the day that we are generally unaware of its tremendous power over us. Examples abound. Traffic jams, flight delays, loss of personal property, being jostled by crowds, and disruptions of our daily routine provide opportunities for us to notice whether or not we are attached to our desires.

Does nonattachment to desire mean that we should not plan? Nothing could be further from the truth. Planning for the future is common sense. Knowing something of inevitable cycles, we can plan ahead. Our plans may or may not work out as we hope, but that should not prevent us from being as sensible as possible.

Perhaps the most difficult attachment to avoid is the attachment to those we love. True love goes out without hooks. Attachment, however, makes us want to keep something or someone exactly as they are for our own emotional comfort. If we love a spouse or a friend without attachment, we can let them go when they move out of our lives or when they die. When we truly love someone, we want what is best for them; and sometimes it is best that they die. Our grief, although it is natural, is evidence that in addition to our love, we have become attached to having their physical presence with us.

Some might say that desires are normal and there is nothing to be gained by trying to detach ourselves from them. Rather than accept or reject that point of view, we might consider what sages have called "the eternal now." From a scientific as well as Theosophical point of view, everything in the objective world is moving, and moving equals change. Nothing stays the same even for a nanosecond. When we have what we want, we are happy. We don't want anything to change. But we can no more prevent our lives from changing than we can stop the earth from spinning on its axis. Our desire to keep things as they are, and the impossibility of doing so, produce psychological pain. Sages say that if we avoid becoming attached to the objects of our desire, we will be able to enjoy life to its fullest. Blavatsky once said that the Theosophist should have a deep appreciation of the sensate world, but a calm indifference to it. This indifference might mean a complete acceptance of constant change. Early in The Secret Doctrine we read, "Time was not, for it lay asleep in the infinite bosom of duration." The current scientific view is similar. Theoretically, there was no time before the Big Bang. What we call "time" is our experience of motion. Without motion there can be no time. But we are so rooted in our experience of time that it is difficult to realize that time is perpetual motion within an eternal now. In letter 15 of The Mahatma Letters, Koot Hoomi writes, "Past, present and future! Miserable concepts of the objective phases of the Subjective Whole, they are about as ill adapted for the purpose as an axe for fine carving."

To be able to accept change and yet find life joyful, it may be helpful to get some sense of what Koot Hoomi calls "the Subjective Whole" or the eternal now. There is no doubt that this can be realized, at least momentarily, through meditation. Seeking to find the root of our own being in the Eternal can lead to Self-realization. It can free us from identification with the constantly changing world while allowing us to enjoy this world. When we have had flashes of insight into the eternal background, it becomes easier to accept and enjoy the changing foreground. Then, when our plans fall apart and what we have enjoyed is gone, we can more easily accept the situation because we now know that we are rooted in the eternal now. This is no easy task. In fact it may be one of the most difficult tasks we ever face. Even after having had a flash of insight into the Eternal, we may find that that insight fades and we slip back into our accustomed way of thought.

It is easy to fool ourselves into believing that we have rooted ourselves in the eternal now when we have not. In one episode of the comic strip "Agnes," we find Agnes at school. Her teacher asks for the assignment, but Agnes does not have it. Agnes is convinced that she is now enjoying every moment with joy, and the fact that she does not have her assignment does not bother her one bit. But when the teacher makes her stay after school to finish the assignment, Agnes decides that her moments of joy are turning sour. As is often the case with us all, Agnes has deceived herself.

Having touched on the problem of personal desire, we may now look more closely at spiritual desire or what Koot Hoomi called "inner spiritual aspirations." When The Voice of the Silence says, "If thou killest [desire] take heed lest from the dead it should again arise," it refers to killing ordinary selfish desire only to have it reincarnate as spiritual or inner selfish desire. This is not the same as spiritual will. Spiritual will is essential to spiritual development. In fact, in letter 126 Koot Hoomi directs us to have "an iron, never failing determination and yet be meek and gentle, humble and have shut out from [the] heart every human passion, that leads to evil." The "human passion" is both personal desire and spiritual selfishness.

While personal desire is deplorable, it is far less dangerous than spiritual selfishness. In letter 64 Koot Hoomi describes this more dangerous form:

 There are persons who, without ever showing any external sign of selfishness, are intensely selfish in their inner spiritual aspirations. These will follow the path once chosen by them with their eyes closed to the interests of all but themselves, and see nothing outside the narrow pathway filled with their own personality. They are so intensely absorbed in the contemplation of their own supposed "righteousness" that nothing can ever appear right to them outside the focus of their own vision distorted by their self-complacent contemplation, and their judgment of the right and wrong.

One sign of spiritual selfishness is the desire to acquire knowledge and power for oneself. If the desire for personal enlightenment is so strong that it prevents us from fulfilling our responsibilities, we have fallen victim to spiritual selfishness. In extreme cases, a parent may neglect a child in order to visit a guru or attend a religious rite. Among Theosophists we trust that such cases are rare, but less extreme cases are common. We may consider some cases from member meetings of the Theosophical Society. For example a member might insist that meetings contain information helpful to him or her personally while ignoring the needs of others. Their unstated desire can be summed up thus: "I know what we need to do to make our meetings more spiritually useful, and I intend to override the views of others in order to get what I want." In addition, many of us participate in group discussions, but sometimes the desire to get our view across is so strong that we monopolize the meeting, oblivious to the time we are taking and to the fact that we are keeping others from participating.

Not every member of the Theosophical Society can attend meetings. Some members who support the Society by their dues and good will do not have the interest or time to support it actively. Other members face responsibilities that prevent them from attending. In such cases, spiritual selfishness might, ironically, mean going to a meeting rather than carrying out these responsibilities.

Certain members are able to attend most meetings but choose to come only when the subject matter appeals to them. If they think they've heard it all before, they won't go. The late Emily Sellon, a prominent Theosophist and former vice-president of the Society in America , was once asked why she attended member meetings once a week. The inquirer asked her, "What do you get out of it?" Emily replied, "It is not what I get out of it. It is what I can contribute to it."

We do not have to give a lecture to contribute to a Theosophical meeting. Participating in a discussion is also a contribution. The expressed thoughts of individuals in the group provide food for thought, even when the ideas may seem foolish to us. If we try to understand our fellow members, we might discover what is behind an apparently foolish statement. For example, it may come from a rigid belief system. If so, rather than becoming annoyed with the speaker (a sign of blocked desire), we might state our own view calmly and without animosity.

In many organizations members complain that the meetings are uninspiring and the subject matter is boring. The charge is always the same. "They" don't present interesting programs. Who are "they"? It is generally only the few who take responsibility to organize the group and schedule programs. Anyone who has ever tried to get volunteer help for any organization knows how difficult that task is. Jiddu Krishnamurti once said, "You are the world." In the Theosophical Society we may say, "Each member is the Theosophical Society." There is no "they," only "we." The Society is what each of us makes of it.

We often forget that the primary purpose of the Theosophical Society is to "form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity." It is easy to believe in universal brotherhood from our armchairs. It is not easy to experience it shoulder to shoulder with fellow members. Nearly every meeting of the Society gives us an opportunity to ponder spiritual principles. Perhaps the presenters are not eloquent. Perhaps they are not well informed. Perhaps they present mistaken notions. Nevertheless, you and I have an opportunity to present our own understanding of the topic. Together we can reach toward the inner states of consciousness, where it is possible to get insights into truth, where, despite our diverse opinions, there is a deeper unity. Even if the meetings occasionally seem to be boring to the bitter end, we are not there to be entertained. We are there to build the bonds of brotherhood and to contribute what we can, either silently by thought or verbally as food for thought.

Universal brotherhood cannot be achieved by acting from an emotional base, even though our emotional state may be profoundly and positively affected by our efforts to reach deeper states of consciousness. An awareness of universal brotherhood can only be achieved through a realization of unity in the deepest states of consciousness. Pondering spiritual principles together is a means toward that end. The Prayer of St. Francis says, "It is in giving that we receive." If we look only to receive, we will, as the Gospel says, "be sent empty away." Spiritual selfishness will have doomed us to failure.

Koot Hoomi has told us that selfishness, pride, egoism, and the want of self-sacrifice are the greatest impediments on the road to adeptship. As we begin to realize that attachment to the objects of our desire is selfish and brings pain, we will begin to free ourselves from it. We may by so doing come ever closer to the secret gateway that leads to the "reward past all telling, the power to bless and save humanity."

Ed Abdill, author of The Secret Gateway, is a former director of the Theosophical Society in America and past president of the New York Theosophical Society. He lectures for the Society throughout the United States and internationally.

by Minor Lile

Originally printed in the"Winter 2011 issue of Quest magazine."
Citation: Minor, Lile. "The One Rejected." Quest" 99."1 (Winter 2011): 19-20.

The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner.

—Psalm 118:22

The Theosophical Society was chosen as the corner stone,

the foundation of the future religion of humanity.

—The Maha Chohan

The allegory of the "stone which the builder refused" points to the value hidden in the things that we are inclined to reject. The theme lends itself to both individual and collective interpretations. We are all the builders of our own destinies. Yet as individuals we often find ourselves rejecting potentialities within ourselves and instead making choices in life that steer us away from the goals that we aspire to reach. In a collective sense, "the builder" might be seen as a metaphor for the established order, which frequently tends to overlook emerging ideas that will eventually be accepted as the established order of some future time.

The allegory of the stone that the builders rejected is well-known in the Judeo-Christian tradition and is found in both the Old and the New Testaments. It first occurs in Psalm 118, which was written approximately 2700 years ago. It also appears in three of the Gospels of the New Testament (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) as well as in the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas. In each instance it follows the parable of the vineyard, in which the son of a vineyard owner is killed by tenants who refuse to rightfully honor their leasehold agreement. The parable suggests that the Son (Jesus) is killed by those who refuse to honor either the Father (God) or the Son. Thus the Son is refused as the cornerstone who points the way to the blessings and salvation of the Father.

The continuing resonance of this idea is suggested by the story of a stone that the Swiss psychiatrist C. G. Jung carved and placed in the walled garden of his retreat at Bollingen on Lake Zurich. In his autobiography, Jung wrote that the stone was one of many that had come from a quarry that lay directly across the lake. During the unloading of the barge, the mason who had placed the order noticed a large cubic stone that had not been ordered. Angrily, the mason told the men working for him that the stone must be returned to the quarry. Jung arrived upon the scene at this moment and observed the stone that had been rejected. "No, that is my stone. I must have it!" he said. "It struck my fancy and I leapt upon it, with the decision not only to keep it but to carve its face." Jung eventually carved on three of its faces. On one face, the first that he worked on, is chiseled a verse from the works of the thirteenth-century alchemist Arnaldus de Villanova: "Here stands the mean, uncomely stone, 'Tis very cheap in price! The more it is despised by fools, the more loved by the wise." Jung once wrote that if properly understood, this stone contained the whole of his philosophy.

In his works The Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious and Aeon, Jung describes the linkage between alchemy and the medieval understanding of the teachings of Christ through the concept of the lapis philosophorum or Philosophers' Stone. In the alchemical tradition, the lapis is often conflated with the Christ. Both are referred to as "sacred rocks" or cornerstones, which are said to be uncomely, hidden, and of small account, but wonderful to look upon when revealed.

In The Secret Doctrine, the commentary to the Stanzas of Dzyan also refers to "one rejected" (The Secret Doctrine, I, 99). In this case it is the sun. The commentary goes on to tell the story from the Rig Veda of Aditi, the Mother of the Gods, and her eight children. Aditi represents the cosmic matrix out of which the sun and the planets known to antiquity were born. Of these children, one, the sun, was cast away and separated from the others because of its primacy. By being cast away, the sun becomes the cornerstone of our solar system and the pivot around which the planets revolve. It is a primary star, as the ancients perceived it, that provides light and love and is the indispensable ingredient for life as we know it on this earthly plane.

On a more mundane level, the Theosophical Society might be seen as a rejected one of our time, an organization that is neglected by the mainstream and generally held to be a curiosity from the past—if it is thought of at all. Yet like other seemingly rejected cornerstones, its ideas and influence have shaped the ways of custom and understanding in the contemporary world. One can readily find the influence of the TS in the ideas that inform our culture's understanding of the meaning and purpose of life. There would seem to be a measure of truth, then, in the statement attributed to the Maha Chohan, the head of the inner order with which the Society is aligned, that the TS "was chosen as the corner stone, the foundation of the future religion of humanity" (The Mahatma Letters, chronological edition, 478).

H. P. Blavatsky stated more than once that Theosophy is not a religion per se; rather it is the essence of religion. By "religion," she did not mean the term in the somewhat constrained and dogmatic way that it was commonly understood in her time. She meant it in the fullness of its original meaning, which is perhaps more along the lines of how the term "spirituality" is used today.

In this wider sense, there clearly are new religious or spiritual developments, emerging in the world, which can often be traced back to the influence of the Theosophical Society and its offshoots. These include the establishment of various Buddhist traditions in the West, the emergence of feminine spirituality, and the establishment of concepts such as reincarnation and karma in the common vernacular. In the generation or so after its founding in 1875, the Theosophical Society played a significant role in introducing the world to a deeper awareness to the spiritual riches of the East. It was Theosophists in England, for example, who awakened a young student, Mohandas K. Gandhi, to the religious wealth of his own Indian heritage through their English translations of the Bhagavad Gita and Mahabharata.

The emergence of a renewed spirituality can also be observed in today's religious eclecticism, as expressed by such concepts as inter- or transtraditional spirituality, which attempt to characterize the many people who are drawing meaning and practices from various traditions in forming a unique and individual approach to spiritual practice. This eclecticism is reflected in the Society's Second Object, which encourages the comparative study of religion, science, and philosophy as a path to better understanding the ideas that influence spiritual perceptions and practices.

The deepening awareness of Buddhism in the West can be seen as one of the most significant religious developments of the last quarter of the twentieth century, and it is one in which the Theosophical Society played a prominent part. Both Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott were practicing Buddhists. Olcott played a significant and honored role in helping to restore the place of Buddhism in the culture of Sri Lanka. Blavatsky's esteem for and close ties to the Buddhist practices of Tibet are well documented. Since then, Theosophists have been continuously involved in helping dislocated Tibetans settle in India, Europe, and America. The Theosophical Society hosted the Dalai Lama at Adyar in 1975, and later at the national center in Wheaton during his first visit to North America. (Plans are afoot to sponsor another presentation by him, probably in 2012.) The Theosophical Publishing House also issued The Opening of the Wisdom-Eye, the first of the Dalai Lama's books to be published for a Western readership, in 1966.

While the TS is typically assigned something of an Eastern orientation, there is no denying that the Egyptian, Hermetic, and alchemical traditions also provided essential source material for the works of Blavatsky and those who have followed in her footsteps. The influence of the Theosophical Society can also be found in the reawakened awareness of esoteric Christianity that was central to the life work of Rudolf Steiner. Steiner was a prominent member of the TS in Germany before breaking off in 1912 to form the Anthroposophical Society as a container for his own work. Another early Theosophist, G. R. S. Mead, was a translator of significant Gnostic texts that reintroduced, modernized, and helped make practical the esoteric threads of Western spirituality.

Notwithstanding these accomplishments, the essential work for which the Society was formed is far from done. As expressed in the Theosophical World View, the central concern of the Society is "to promote understanding and brotherhood among people of all races, nationalities, philosophies, and religions." Even as a shared sense of global community is slowly forming in the world, enhanced by developments in transportation and communications, the great environmental, economic, and sectarian challenges that we face continuously divide us. We are still called on to strive, as is also said in the Maha Chohan's letter, "to achieve the proposed object, a greater, wiser, and especially a more benevolent intermingling of the high and the low, of the Alpha and the Omega of society" (Mahatma Letters, chronological edition, 478).

It may be useful to recall that the core spiritual teachings embodied in the Theosophical tradition are rooted in love and compassion. This call to live for the well-being of others is exemplified by the virtues of the Bodhisattva and the commandment of Jesus Christ to "love one another." From this perspective, the great exemplars of humanity are those who devote their lives to helping reduce and eliminate suffering in the world.

In other words, Theosophy recognizes that while one's spiritual quest might appear to be individual and unique, and self-realization an individual attainment, that endeavor can only be undertaken in the context of a relational and inextricably interconnected world. In this sense, spiritual awakening is essentially a work of learning to live in harmony with and in service to one another and the world around us.

There can be little doubt that these teachings about our shared human bonds are underappreciated and largely disregarded. It seems likely that awakening a true awareness of interconnectedness and shared responsibility for the well-being of others is the work not of a lifetime or a century but of an eon. It may be that the forms of religious practice that call to us from the future will be rooted in an emerging relational spirituality that honors both the individual and the communal, thereby healing the mistrust and fear that dualistic perceptions seem to engender.

We're not there yet. From our current vantage point, it appears that there are lifetimes to be lived and much to be done before the realized Objects of the Theosophical tradition might shine forth as luminously as the light of the sun. When that day does finally come, as the teachings say it inevitably must, all those who have toiled on its behalf will be able to share a measure of satisfaction at having helped to nurture the work of this one rejected, this cornerstone of that endeavor.

"Minor Lile is a spiritual director and has been a resident manager at Indralaya, the Theosophical center in the Pacific Northwest, for over eleven years. He leads workshops on relationship and community and has served on the board of directors of the Theosophical Society in America.

 by Pablo D. Sender

Originally printed in the Winter 2011 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Sender, Pablo D. “The Theosophical Path of Meditaiton.” Quest  99. 1 (Winter 2011): 15-18.

The Theosophical Society was arguably the first organization in modern times to widely promote meditation in the West. Today more and more people are aware of meditation as an important aspect of the spiritual life, and when they get in touch with Theosophy they want to know what the recommended practice is. Although the Theosophical approach refrains from promoting any particular system of meditation for all people to follow, a wealth of teachings about meditation can be found in the Theosophical literature. In this article we will explore some of the methods recommended. 

The Aim

People come to meditation for a wide variety of reasons. Many of them see in it a relaxation technique, or a method to reduce the stress caused by daily living. Others look at it as a way to generate pleasant emotional or psychological states, like peace, harmony, and joy. Others meditate in order to experience visions or to develop psychic powers. But from a Theosophical point of view, meditation has a more transcendental aim. Although its practice may produce some of the effects described above, its real purpose is, as I. K. Taimni says, “to bring the lower personality in conscious touch with the Higher Self, thus making it increasingly aware of its divine origin, destiny, and nature” (Taimni, 320). Once that aim is accomplished, its practice can take the aspirant even further. Geoffrey Hodson says: “The second objective [of meditation] is to realise that the Spiritual Self of man is forever an integral part of the Spiritual Self of the Universe” (Hodson, 3).

If one comes to meditation simply to derive physical or psychological benefits, a fairly simple practice can bring the desired results. This kind of practice is frequently suitable for people beginning to explore meditation. Nevertheless, while it may build the foundation for a deeper approach, in and of itself it may not be enough to enable the aspirant to get in touch with his or her true spiritual Self. In order to attain such a high aim, the practice of meditation has to fulfill certain conditions, as will be presently discussed. In addition, the whole life of the aspirant has to be gradually brought in tune with this lofty purpose. This is why the Theosophical tradition sees meditation as only a part of spiritual practice, which must be accompanied by study, service, self-knowledge, and a general effort towards self-transformation.

 Foundations 

The first thing that most people ask when approaching this subject is what technique of meditation they should practice. This may not be the best place to begin. Before starting to walk, one should make sure that one is heading in the right direction. Hugh Shearman wrote: “The question, then, is not what technique of meditation is being used, but who is using it, what motivating selfhood has activated this process” (Shearman, 143). As has already been said, Theosophical meditation aims at transcending the personal self. If it is used as a means for personal aggrandizement, it may produce some results at this level, but it is unlikely to have any transcendent effect. It is important to give some thought to this question because spirituality is frequently approached like mundane life—as a process of acquiring. One may not be accumulating objects, but all the same one is trying to acquire virtues, peace, happiness, etc., as personal possessions. While it is true that the development of virtues is necessary at a certain stage of our spiritual growth, virtues can flower only when they are pursued not for our personal enjoyment but because they are doors through which our real spiritual nature can express itself. Most people do not realize that the personal self is the real source of conflict. Letting go of it and discovering the true Self is the only way to real happiness. In fact, spiritual meditation begins when one is able to leave the personal self behind. Techniques are merely preliminary means to get to this point. One will never be able to reach that point if one comes to meditation trying to acquire something. As Annie Besant said: “Meditation means this opening out of the soul to the Divine and letting the Divine shine in without obstruction from the personal self. Therefore it means renunciation. It means throwing away everything that one has, and waiting empty for the light to come in” (Besant, The Building of the Kosmos, 119). Thus, in the Theosophical approach, the practice of meditation aims at leading the aspirant to a state where he or she must leave behind the personal self and all mental processes to get in touch with his or her spiritual nature.

All serious spiritual traditions talk about the need for physical, moral, and mental preparation in order to be able to meditate effectively. The Theosophical tradition also emphasizes as part of spiritual practice the gradual adoption of a pure and healthy lifestyle; the development of emotional maturity, which comes from moral living and lessening our attachments, passions, and lower desires; the cultivation of an understanding of oneself and the universe; and the development of an unselfish attitude. This, of course, does not mean that one cannot meditate starting right from where one is at this moment. On the contrary, when the approach is holistic, the practice of meditation will aid the efforts in these areas, and vice versa. 

Methods 

Meditation on Spiritual Concepts

In this approach, the practitioner chooses a relevant spiritual subject and employs all his or her mental powers to deeply ponder, inquire, and reflect on it. When a process of inquiry takes place with a very focused and calm mind, there is the possibility of awakening spiritual intuition. But for this to happen, there has to be an effort to grasp the truth of the subject in its more universal aspect. C. Jinarajadasa said: “As the mind contemplates the facts which have been brought into a framework of unity, there dawns on the mind the new faculty of intuition. Consciousness then understands the true and inner nature of all that is present before the mind” (Jinarajadasa, The New Humanity of Intuition, 23).

This is a good method for beginners. This deep inquiry stimulates the higher or abstract mind, which perceives spiritual realities and receives the flashes of intuition. Thus meditation on spiritual concepts provides insights into the reality of life and into oneself, gradually producing wisdom.

Some central Theosophical themes to meditate on are the unity of all life, the law of karma, spiritual evolution as the purpose of life, the power of thought, and the real Self beyond the temporary vehicles of consciousness. One can also meditate on spiritual aphorisms. A collection of them may be found in books like Thoughts for Aspirants, Gifts of the Lotus, among others. There are also inspirational books like At the Feet of the Master, Light on the Path, and The Voice of the Silence that can be used for this purpose. 

Meditation on Virtues

Theosophical literature explains that every thought and feeling one entertains attracts subtle matter that builds one’s emotional and mental bodies. Through these bodies one thinks, feels, perceives the world, and reacts to it. Meditation on a virtue will gradually purify the subtle bodies and enable them to vibrate in response to higher and more refined emotions and aspirations. In addition, this type of meditation helps expand consciousness through insights into the nature of the virtues. Remember, however, that when we meditate on a virtue, we should do it with humility—out of love of, and devotion to, that particular expression of Truth, and not out of greed to acquire it.

For this type of meditation, you may choose any virtue that attracts you—a quality that you believe a spiritual aspirant should have. Alternatively, you may examine your character to identify a distinct shortcoming you want to be free of. In this case, you should not meditate on the weakness itself but on its opposite virtue. Thus, if you are irritable, you may meditate on patience. But you must examine yourself and try to go to the root of the problem. For example, if you are not truthful, you would naturally think you should meditate on truth. But if you are not truthful because you are anxious about being accepted by others, you may want to meditate on courage or on self-confidence.

Once you choose the virtue, you can meditate, first, by trying to realize its essence. Then try to perceive this virtue inside of you as well as the inner obstacles that are hindering its expression. Finally, you can meditate on how this virtue would express itself in your life, in general or in specific situations.

In addition to the above technique, there is a different approach that involves the use of imagination. Here, you visualize yourself as the embodiment of the virtue. Annie Besant describes this process: “One favourite way of mine—for I was very irritable in my younger days— . . . was making myself an embodiment of patience; you never saw such a saint as I was in my meditation; whatever I might have been outside of it during the day, I was absolutely, completely, and perfectly patient in it! Then I brought up round me mentally all the most unpleasant and provoking people that I knew, and I heightened their power of provocation as much as I increased my own power of patience; and so I made a little mental drama, in which they provoked me in every possible way, and I answered as a modern Griselda” (Besant, Man’s Life in This and Other Worlds, 61).

As Besant indicates, this technique requires that one strive to express that virtue as much as possible in daily life, so that the process of building the subtle bodies is not undone during the rest of the day. 

Meditation on the One Life

One of the central concepts in Theosophy is that ultimately there is only one life and one Self animating everything in the universe. Although consciousness in most people is constrained to work through what they call “me,” this limit is not intrinsic to consciousness itself. It is perfectly possible to perceive the one life as it manifests in any creature because there is no real boundary to consciousness, as many mystics have said.

At the beginning of the practice, the perception of unity may be mainly at an intellectual level, or at the level of the imagination. Gradually, this perception becomes more and more intuitive until an actual expansion of consciousness may be experienced.

A typical approach to this meditation involves an expansion of mind, in imagination, in all space, embracing larger and larger areas. As the mind expands, one tries to conceive and feel the unity with all, including every manifestation of the divine life.

You may start by imagining that you are looking at your house from above while trying to feel unity with all people that live there—whether you feel affinity for them or not. You can then include those who frequently visit the house, as well as other forms of life there, such as pets, birds, insects, and plants. Do not focus on the forms, but think of the divine life that is animating them all. Take your time in this step until you feel ready to go further. Then, as if zooming out, go higher, above the town you are in. Try to feel unity with everything that is there; with good people as well as with the ignorant, the unhappy, and the criminal; with both beautiful and ugly places. Again, disregard the outward appearances and try to identify with the one life that is struggling to express itself through all these different forms. As C. W. Leadbeater wrote: “During meditation one may try to think of the Supreme Self in everything, and everything in it. Try to understand how the Self is endeavouring to express itself through the form” (Leadbeater, 142). Remember that the universal Self is always perfect, pure, and divine, even if the form obstructs and distorts its manifestation.

In this same way, go higher until you include your country, then the whole world, then the solar system, and finally the entire universe. But remember not to hurry through the different steps. You do not need to go through them all. It is more important to do your best to realize the unity at each step, including in your consciousness all the different elements that belong to each stage.

Meditation on a Divine Being

During this meditation the aspirant puts before his or her mental eye an ideal of perfection, embodied in the form of a holy or divine being. In the Theosophical tradition the object of meditation is usually a Master of Wisdom, or the Higher Self. But aspirants can also meditate on any deity, sage, or holy person toward whom they feel devotion.

For this meditation to be effective, it is necessary to be careful not to project one’s own limitations, such as feelings of jealousy, partisanship, anger, or selfishness, onto the divine being. Otherwise it will not be possible to get in rapport with the divine. Mahatma Morya warns about “the magnetism and invisible results proceeding from erroneous and sincere beliefs.” Thoughts are living things, and when an aspirant holds a wrong belief, it “attracts millions of foreign influences, living entities and powerful agents around them” that block spiritual influences (Barker and Chin, 95).

Theosophists were the first in the West to talk clearly and openly about the Masters of Wisdom, more than a century ago. Today there are all kinds of incompatible ideas about them. For example, the New Age idea of “Ascended Masters” has features that differ in very important aspects from the Theosophical one. While this is a complex subject, basically the New Age treats the Master as if he were an acquaintance of ours, but endowed with supernatural powers so that one can ask him things for one’s personal needs. Thus, in this view one can summon him, visit him whenever one wants, and so on, as if the Masters were just hanging out on the inner planes. HPB once wrote a letter to certain members who had begun to conceive of them in this way, saying that they were desecrating the Masters by doing this. She contended that the Masters regard this physical plane as an illusion and do not care much about the personality. Their work is mainly at the level of the developing Higher Ego, and they engage with the physical plane in a very limited way, and only if it is really necessary. Consequently, in the Theosophical view their personalities (bodies, names, etc.) are not as important as they are in the New Age. The external attributes are taken just as the shadow of that magnificent state of consciousness that the Master really is.

To use the Master of Wisdom as the object of meditation, it is first recommended that one study about their nature as described in Theosophical literature. The first chapters of the book The Way of the Disciple by Clara Codd can be a good place to start.

For this meditation you can proceed in two ways:

Visualize the holy figure in front of you and concentrate your mind on the image with a feeling of love or devotion, or try to feel one with this being. If the feeling of devotion is not particularly strong, you may deeply ponder on the real nature of the divine being, while contemplating its image. If you are unable to form a clear and stable image, there are two additional options: either concentrate on the feeling of the holy presence before you, or meditate with your eyes open while looking at a picture, statuette, or symbol of the object of meditation.

Alternatively, the holy figure may be visualized in the region of the heart. Mahatma Koot Hoomi is reported to have said: “Your best method is to concentrate on the Master as a Living Man within you. Make His image in your heart, and a focus of concentration, so as to lose all sense of bodily existence in the one thought” (quoted in Blavatsky, 12:696). The heart is highly regarded in most spiritual traditions. Blavatsky wrote: “The Heart is the organ of the Spiritual Consciousness . . . [It] is the abode of the Spiritual Man, whereas the Psycho-Intellectual Man dwells in the Head” (Blavatsky, 12:694). It is important to understand, however, that here the heart does not mean the physical muscle. It refers to a nonphysical center situated in that region of the body through which we can contact spiritual consciousness. The figure can be visualized either in the cavity of the heart or just outside the body, at the level of the physical organ, where the subtler etheric center is found.

 Meditation on the Subtle Bodies and Beyond

The last method that will be explored is based on the Theosophical teaching of the subtle bodies. Therefore, a fairly good grasp of this subject will greatly help the process of meditation. According to Theosophy, besides the physical body human beings possess several subtle bodies: the emotional, mental, and causal. The physical, emotional, and mental bodies compose the personal—or lower—ego. Beyond the personality there is the causal body, which is the vehicle of the individual soul, also called the Higher Ego. Even beyond the causal body there is the spirit or Monad, the divine spark in each person that is one with the universe. In his Meditation on Life, N. Sri Ram wrote:

The first object in meditation is to discover one's own Spiritual Selfhood as distinct from the personal vehicle, physical, emotional, mental, and the consciousness active within them. So we begin with an exercise in dissociation seeking both to realize the distinction between the Immortal Spiritual Self and the mortal changing personality. We then come to realize that the Spiritual Self of man is forever an integral part of the Spiritual Self of the universe, the All-Pervading Supreme Lord. Man is One with God and through that with All that lives.

There are two general approaches to this type of meditation, which can be called “positive” and “negative.” The positive approach seeks to generate the highest possible vibration in each body so as to progressively raise the level of consciousness. For example, first try to generate a sense of health and harmony at the physical level; next go to the emotional level and feel peace and love; and then go to the mental level and think of any spiritual concept that is appealing. Now go even further and picture yourself as being the Higher Ego in the causal body. Feel that your real Identity is beyond the body, emotions, and mind. Finally, try to realize that you are an inseparable spark of the divine fire, and dwell on the feeling of unity.

The negative approach, as its name suggests, is based on a process of negation. With this practice, try to realize that you are not the lower principles, leaving behind one body after the other. Realize that, since the physical body is not eternal, this cannot be your real Self. Do the same with your emotional and mental bodies, leaving behind emotions and thoughts. Finally, stay in the highest possible state without picturing anything, but waiting for the higher consciousness to arrive.

This meditation helps generate the habit of identifying yourself with the higher. This should be complemented in daily life with an effort to perceive things beyond the personal point of view.

This article offers just an overview of a few methods of meditation recommended in the Theosophical literature. For further information and material you can visit the Web site www.dzyantheosophy.org.

References

Barker, A. T., and Vicente Hao Chin Jr., eds. The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett from the Mahatmas M. and K. H. in Chronological Sequence. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1998.

Beechey, Katherine. Daily Meditations. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1990.

Besant, Annie. The Building of the Kosmos and Other Lectures. London: Theosophical Publishing House, 1918.

———. Man’s Life in This and Other Worlds. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1913.

———. Meditations on the Path and Its Qualifications. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 2008.

Blavatsky, H. P. Collected Writings. 15 vols. Wheaton: Theosophical Publishing House, 1977-91.

Codd, Clara. The Way of the Disciple. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 2000.

Hanson, Virginia. Gifts of the Lotus. Wheaton: Quest, 1974.

Hodson, Geoffrey. A Yoga of Light. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 2003.

Jinarajadasa, C. Fragments. Wheaton: Quest, 1980.

———. The New Humanity of Intuition. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1938.

Leadbeater, C. W. The Inner Life. Wheaton: Quest, 1996.

 http://www.theosophicalsociety.gr/aikya/Meditation.htm (This link is no longer valid)

———. Thoughts for Aspirants. Wheaton: Quest, 1989.

Shearman, Hugh. “Meditation.” The Theosophist 102, no. 4 (Jan. 1981).

Taimni, I. K. “Some Interesting Aspects of Meditation.” The American Theosophist 58, no. 11 (Nov. 1970).

Pablo D. Sender has given Theosophical lectures, seminars, and classes in the India, Spain, the U.S., and different countries of Latin America. He has published articles in Spanish and English in several Theosophical journals, which can be found on his Web site, http://www.pablosender.com/.