Thoughts Along the Road - 03

Observing the Sacredness of Daily Life

Carlos Cardoso Aveline 

Universal wisdom adapts everyday life to the flow of oceanic truth

* Learn to be silent, and start talking through actions and by example.

* According to Sun-tzu, the battle must be won before it starts.

* You can best identify and correct your mistakes by persevering in the pursuit of a noble goal.

* Listen to the wordless voice of the noblest, innermost aspects of your own heart, and willingly pay the price for following your conscience.

* In your search for wisdom, learn to see each defeat as useful raw material in the preparation of a lasting victory.

* Better late than never, perhaps. Yet it is even better to act in the right time and avoid foreseeable mistakes.

* One’s spiritual soul is the source of unconditional contentment and confidence in life. True enthusiasm flows from the higher self.

* Waste of time produces hurry, just as hurry produces waste of time. Discernment and right choices save time and energy and produce peace.

* Decisive moments in history and life rarely announce themselves as such. It is up to one’s heart and discernment to identify them, and to act accordingly.

* A constant reexamination of that which we take for granted, of our priorities and our methods of action. This is a price to pay for preserving a clearly defined, central focus in our lives.

* The Aquarian age is the age of conscious universal interaction. The illusion of separativeness is by now widely defeated. Ethics will provide right relationships and correct ways to interact, which lead to universal brotherhood.

* Hidden behind each second of everyday chronological time, endless Duration and Eternal Time look at us. As they observe us, they may have more than one reason to smile. As we look at them, we find peace. We cannot see them, but we can suspect their secret unfathomable presence deep within our minds and souls, and this is enough.

* Many want to obtain knowledge, but not everyone accepts renouncing ignorance. For wisdom to emerge, a detachment is necessary regarding outer forms, and a constant search for that which is essential and eternal.

*  Wisdom is not necessarily anthropomorphic. Migratory birds, for example, can teach us by their long-distance flights that clearly established goals and a detachment from immediate circumstances pave the way to lasting success. Discernment brings about efficiency. 

* It is not enough to be a pioneer and to act from a correct vision of the healthy future now waiting for our humanity. It is also necessary to develop a wide set of actions which unfolds step by step, multidimensionally, creating irreversible facts, and in no hurry.

* Discovering truth means uncovering falsehood, and the other way around. By understanding the specific workings of self-delusion in his life, a student of philosophy will liberate much of his strength and energy and rededicate them to worthwhile goals and effective actions.

* Anxiety, the disease of present times, condemns its victims to superficiality. The feeling of “intensity” which anxiety provides is fake. Peace of mind grants a deep and lasting, not a shallow intensity of life. Theosophy can be defined as the science of dynamic peace and universal law.

* A short term view of life invites people to make wrong decisions and provokes significant waste of time. Calmness allows us to make firm, long-term decisions, and increases the efficiency of everyday actions.

* When the great questions regarding the life of a theosophical student are settled, smaller issues seem to take care of themselves, little by little. The decisive points refer to his immortal soul. They include his relation with the law of the universe, and with the universal wheel of life.

* Right action is performed while one is guided by one’s own heart. It will contain mistakes, but the presence of the heart and of conscience allows one to learn better, to improve his actions and to make real progress along the path.

* One must expect more from oneself than from others. However, being frank towards other people is necessary if we want to be honest with ourselves. Sincerity is one of the best gifts one may offer to people with whom we may live or work - even if this gift is at times uncomfortable.

* Each human being is a bridge. He must learn to become a strong line of individual life vertically connecting the eternal and celestial consciousness to every outer, physical and earthly perception. While this may be a goal for a few lifetimes, each small step ahead in one’s daily life has a decisive importance.

* To be impersonal does not consist in hiding one’s own name as a way to attain sainthood. Such a practice often leads to a subtle denial of self-responsibility. To be impersonal means to transcend all personal names in one’s heart, while being able to use them in the outward world and responding for what we do.

* You cannot know when it is that victory along the Path to Wisdom will come to you or at what speed it will do so. You can decide that you will work hard in preparing it. Such a decision must be made again and again and on a daily basis across your lifetime. Each small step ahead contains an aspect of the whole victory.

* The will to act correctly and with justice is one of the most precious goods one may ever have, and no amount of money can possibly buy it. In fact, it is by desiring money that many people lose the treasure in heaven - the decision to act with justice. In exchange for 30 coins, modern Judases betray the Christ or inner Master who is in their own conscience.

* As a concept, a “calling to victory” is still little known in the theosophical movement. A true victory defeats no one. It transmutes the whole life into a better condition. A calling to victory is the inner harmony with that which transcends suffering. It is an active, creative attitude regarding the future we deem desirable. It results from the ability to listen to our spiritual soul, whose substance is bliss.

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The above fragments were first published anonymously in the September 2014 edition of “The Aquarian Theosophist”. Most of them were under the title “27 Thoughts Along the Road”.

On the role of the esoteric movement in the ethical awakening of mankind during the 21st century, see the book “The Fire and Light of Theosophical Literature”, by Carlos Cardoso Aveline.  

Published in 2013 by The Aquarian Theosophist, the volume has 255 pages and can be obtained through Amazon Books.

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The Search

There Is No Path For Me, No God, No Guide

Ianthe H. Hoskins

The symbolic up-hill path in the search for wisdom, and a photo of Ianthe Hoskins

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Editorial Note:

Ms. Ianthe H. Hoskins, a British theosophist and

author, was a dedicated student of H.P. Blavatsky’s.

A woman with a bright sense of humour, she was almost

100 years old when she died in 2001. Ianthe Hoskins’ last

book was “Reflections on Time, Duration and Immortality”,

from which we reproduce the poem below. It suggests that a

truth-seeker must be prepared to face obstacles, especially

if he does not want to delude himself along the way.

(CCA)

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There is no path for me, no God, no guide;

I fling away from light and leading hand;

I have no sword, no staff, no friend beside:

Alone, unarmed, I seek an unknown land.

With bruised fingers and with bleeding feet,

Alone I tread, while round me and before

Foe upon foe assails me, whom I greet

As friends to lead me to the unknown shore.

Give me no counsel, proffer me no aid,

No star in my impenetrable night;

Alone, alone my journey has to be made

Through the here-darkness to the yonder Light.

So shall the pilgrim know from whence he came,

The spark be one with the eternal flame. [1]

NOTE:

[1] From “Reflections on Time, Duration and Immortality”, by Ianthe H. Hoskins, Theosophical Publishing House, London, 2000, 38 pp., see p. 37. 

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On the role of the esoteric movement in the ethical awakening of mankind during the 21st century, see the book “The Fire and Light of Theosophical Literature”, by Carlos Cardoso Aveline.  

Published in 2013 by The Aquarian Theosophist, the volume has 255 pages and can be obtained through Amazon Books.

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Helena Andreevna Hahn

The Mother of Helena P. Blavatsky

Was a Russian Writer and a Pioneer Thinker

Lydia Bobritsky  (comp.)

Helena Andreevna Hahn (1814-1843)

“The man with a higher intellect is

intolerable enough to this world, but the

position of a woman, who has been placed by

Nature itself above the crowd is verily desperate.”

(Helena Andreevna Hahn)

A 2012 Editorial Note:

Life could be quick in the 19th century.

Helena Andreevna Fadeev was born 11 January 1814. At 16, she got married to Captain Peter Hahn. She was only 17 years old when her daughter Helena Petrovna, later Helena Blavatsky, was born in 1831.

With little more than 20 years of age, Helena Andreevna Hahn was considered the leading female writer of prose fiction in Russia. [1] Celebrated critics, as A. Belinsky, wrote articles on her. She then died at 28, on June 24, 1843.

Belinsky wrote this epitaph to her:

“Peace be unto your ashes, extraordinary woman, victim of the rich talents of your own lofty nature! ….. We thank you for your short life. Not in vain did it bloom like a luxurious, fragrant flower of profound feelings and lofty thoughts. Your soul is in this flower and there will be no death for it!” [2]

In her novels and short stories, Helena Andreevna wrote about the organized selfishness of society.

She said:

“Every outstanding woman, especially a writer, will be persecuted by the world … Her gifts of intellect, her talents all are in vain before the crowd; she will be like a criminal rejected by society.”[3] Helena Petrovna would soon challenge the world in a similar way as her mother did, and would experience the meaning of those sad words; for such were the conditions in the 19th century.

We reproduce in PDF the article “Helena Andreevna Hahn” from the magazine “The Theosophical Forum”, August 1948 edition pp. 449-457. The text was translated and compiled by Lydia Bobritsky from the Preface to the “Complete Works of Elena A. Hahn”, published in 1905.

(Carlos Cardoso Aveline)

Click Here to Read

“Helena Andreevna Hahn” in PDF

NOTES:

[1] “Dictionary of Russian Women Writers”, available online.

[2] “HPB - The Extraordinary Life and Influence of Helena Blavatsky, Founder of the Modern Theosophical Movement”, Sylvia Cranston, published by Jeremy Tarcher / G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, USA, 1993, 648 pp., p. 23.

[3] “HPB - The Extraordinary Life and Influence of Helena Blavatsky, Founder of the Modern Theosophical Movement”, Sylvia Cranston, p. 24. 

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On the role of the esoteric movement in the ethical awakening of mankind during the 21st century, see the book “The Fire and Light of Theosophical Literature”, by Carlos Cardoso Aveline.  

Published in 2013 by The Aquarian Theosophist, the volume has 255 pages and can be obtained through Amazon Books.

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The Story of Alcoholic Drinks

Blavatsky Translates a Tale by Tolstoy,

On the Moral Effects of Whiskey and Wines

Leo Tolstoy

Helena Blavatsky and Leo Tolstoy

A 2012 Editorial Note:

The following story was translated from the Russian by Helena P. Blavatsky and first published by her in “Lucifer” magazine, London, November, 1889 edition, pp. 195-98. Its general title was “Russian Popular Tracts - Selections from Count L. N. Tolstoy’s Tales”. The story itself was entitled “How a Devil’s Imp Redeemed his Loaf; or the First Distiller”.

“Lucifer” (literally, “light-bringer”) is the ancient name for the sacred planet Venus, the “elder sister” of our planet Earth and the “star of the morning”.  The meaning of the word has been distorted by medieval theologians so as to be a synonym to another theological fiction made popular by them, “the devil”.   Tolstoy’s story uses this same popular idea of personalized devils to symbolize those lower energies in human psyche which create tests and obstacles to human evolution.  

The tale does more than reveal the moral effects of alcoholic beverages. It couldn’t be more updated, today.  While alcoholism is still a problem in almost every country, the reality shown by Tolstoy essentially includes all sorts of 21st century drugs and chemical substances which violate or destroy the natural process of self-determination in the human consciousness.   The concluding paragraphs share an all-encompassing axiom of the art of living and a key principle for the ethics and the economics of sustainable development: voluntary simplicity, or desirelessness with regard to that which is not necessary. Thus, in speaking to his “boss”, the assistant-devil acknowledges:

“The wild beast’s blood is ever present in man, but it remains latent and finds no issue so long as he has no more bread then he needs for his food”.

(Carlos Cardoso Aveline)

A 1889 Note By H.P. Blavatsky:

Since the West has shown such due appreciation of the writings of the greatest novelist and mystic of Russia of today, his best works have all been translated. The Russian, however, recognizes in none of these translations that popular national spirit which pervades the original tales and stories.

Pregnant as these are with popular mysticism and the spirit of theosophical altruism, some of them are charming but most difficult to render into a foreign language. Yet, one may try. One thing is certain: no foreign translator, however able, unless born and bred in Russia and acquainted with Russian peasant life, will be able to do them justice, or even to convey to the reader their full meaning, owing to their absolutely national idiomatic language. If the genius of the Russian literary language is so sui generis as to be most difficult to render in translation, the Russian of the lower classes - the speech of small tradesmen, peasants and labourers, is ten times more so. Difficult as it may seem to a foreigner, yet a born Russian may attempt it, perhaps, with a little more success. At all events, as said, one may try.

Selecting therefore, from such popular tracts, - allegories and moral stories in the form of popular tales - we have translated some for the readers of “Lucifer”. The Christmas Numbers, December, January and February, will contain charming little stories, well worthy of a new translation. Two of them, “Wherein is Love, Therein is God” [1]; “God is in Right, and not in Might”, and some others are stamped with the spirit of truly religious mysticism. Each deserves to be read by the admirers of this great Russian author. For this number, however, we have selected one of a less mystical but more satirical spirit; a cap calculated to fit the head of any drinking Christian nation ad libitum, and we only hope its title, translated verbatim et literatim, will not shock still more the susceptibilities of the opponents of the title of this magazine.

Russia is afflicted with the demon of drink, as much as, though not more than, England or any other country; yet it is not so much the Karma of the nation, as that of their respective governments, whose Karmic burden is growing heavier and more terrible with every year. This curse and universal incubus, drink, is the direct and legitimate progeny of the Rulers; it is begotten by their greed for money, and FORCED by them on the unfortunate masses. Why, in Karma’s name, should the latter be made to suffer here, and hereafter?  

(HPB)

How a Devil’s Imp Redeemed

His Loaf; or - the First Distiller

Leo Tolstoy

A poor peasant went out early to plough; and as he was leaving home without breaking his fast, he carried along with him a loaf of bread. Once in the field he turned over his plough, adjusted the ploughtail, put the ropes under a bush, and over them his loaf of black bread, and covered the whole with his caftan. At last, the horse got tired and the moojik felt hungry. Then he stopped his plough in the furrow, unhitched his horse, and leaving it to graze, moved toward his caftan for his meal. But when he had lifted it up - lo, no loaf was to be seen. Our moojik searched for it here, and he searched for it there he shook his garment and turned it hither and thither - no loaf! He felt surprised. Marvellous doings! No one around, and yet the loaf is carried away by someone. That someone, in truth, was an Imp, who, while the peasant was ploughing, had stolen his loaf and was now hiding behind a bush, preparing to note down the man’s profanity, when he would begin to swear and take the devil’s name. The peasant felt a little sore. “But, after all,” said he, “this won’t starve me; and he who carried away my bread, perchance needed it. Let him eat it then, and good luck to him.”

So, going to the well he drank some water, rested a bit, then catching his horse, he hitched it again to the plough and returned quietly to his work. The Imp felt considerably troubled at such a failure in tempting man to sin and forthwith proceeding home to hell, he narrated to his Elder - the Chief Devil - how he had robbed the moojik of his loaf, who instead of cursing, had only said “to his good luck!” Satan felt very angry at this. “If,” he argued, “the moojik had the best of thee, in this business, then it must be thine own fault; thou didst not know how to bring the thing about. It would be a bad job for us,” he added, “if the peasants, and after them their women, were to take such tricks: no life would become possible for us after this, and such an event cannot be left disregarded. “Go,” continued Satan, “and make up for the failure of the loaf. And if at the end of three years thou shalt not have the best of that man, I will bathe thee in holy water.”

The Imp got terribly frightened at this threat, and running up to earth again, he set himself to thinking how to atone for his guilt. Thus he thought, thought still, and thought more, and went on thinking until he had found what he had to do. Assuming the appearance of a good fellow, he offered himself as a labourer to the poor peasant; and as it happened to be a drought, he advised him to sow his seed in a swamp. Hence, while the fields of all the other peasants were parched, and their harvests burnt by the sun, the crop of the poor peasant grew high and thick, full and grainy. His household had bread to their heart’s content up to the next harvest, and the surplus proved considerable. The following year, the summer being wet, the imp taught the peasant to sow his seed on the mountains. While his neighbours’ corn was blasted, fell down and got rotten, the peasant’s field on the hills brought forth the richest harvest. The moojik stored still more of the corn; and did not know what to do with it.

Then his labouring man taught him to press the corn and distill it into spirit. Having distilled plenty of it, the moojik took to drinking and making others drink thereof. One day the Imp returned to the Elder boasting that he had redeemed his loaf. The Chief went up to see for himself.

Then came the Elder to the moojik, and found that having invited the richest and wealthiest of his neighbours, he was entertaining them with whiskey. There was the mistress carrying the glasses to her guests. Hardly had she begun her round when stumbling over the table, she upset the drink. Out at her flew the moojik abusing his wife to his fill.

“Behold,” he cried, “the devil’s fool. Takest thou good drink for slops? Thou, heavy-handed stupid, to spill on the earth such treasure!”

Here the Imp poked the Elder in the ribs, “Observe,” said he, “and see, if he won’t grudge a loaf now.”

Having abused his wife, the moojik began offering the drink himself. Just then a poor labourer returning from work happened to drop in, unasked, and wishing a merry day to all, he took a seat. Seeing the company drinking, he too, craved to have a drop after his hard day’s work. There he sat, smacking his lips time after time, but the host would offer him nought, only keeping on grumbling: “Who can afford to furnish with whiskey all of you!”

This pleased the chief Devil immensely; as to the Imp, he boasted more than ever: “You wait and see what will come next!” he whispered.

Thus drank the rich peasants, thus drank the host, pandering to each other, and flattering each other, with sweet words, making honeyed and false speeches. Listened the Elder to these, and praised the Imp for this, also. “Without all peradventure,” said he, “this drink making them turn into such foxes, they will take to cheating each other next; and at this rate they will soon fall, everyone of them, into our hands.”

“Wait and see,” said the Imp, “what will come next, when each has one glass more. Now they are only like unto cunning foxes; given time, and they will get transformed into ferocious wolves.”

The peasants had each one glass more, and forthwith their talk became louder and more brutal. Instead of honeyed speeches, they proceeded to abuse each other, and turning gradually fiercer, they ended by getting into a free fight and damaging each other’s noses badly. Then the host took also a turn and got soundly thrashed.

As the Elder looked on, he felt much pleased with this too. “ ’Tis good,” saith he, “very, very good.”

“Wait and see,” said the Imp, “something still better is in store, as soon as they will have emptied their third glass. Now they are fighting like hungry wolves, at the third glass they will have become like swine.”

The peasants had their third round, and quite lost their reason. Grumbling and hiccupping, shouting at each other, and knowing not what they said, they rushed out, some alone, some in couples, and some in triplets, and scattered in the streets. The host trying to see his guests off, fell with his nose in a mud-puddle, rolled in it and unable to rise, lay there grunting like a hog . . . . This pleased the Elder Devil most of all.

“Well,” saith he, “thou hast invented a fine drink, indeed, and redeemed thy loaf! Tell me,” he added, “how hast thou managed to compound it? Surely thou must have fermented it first, with the blood of the fox; thence the craft of the drunken peasant, who becomes forthwith a fox himself. Then thou hast distilled it with wolf’s blood, which makes him as wicked as a wolf? Finally, thou hast mixed the whole with the blood of the swine; therefore has the peasant become like a hog.”

“Not so,” quoth the Imp. “I only helped him to get some extra cereals. The wild beast’s blood is ever present in man, but it remains latent and finds no issue so long as he has no more bread then he needs for his food, and then it is that he does not grudge to another his last morsel of bread. But no sooner did man get more corn than he needed, than he took to inventing things wherewith to gratify his passions. Then it was that I taught him the enjoyment - of intoxicating drink. And no sooner had he commenced to distill the gift of God into spirit, for his gratification, than his original foxish, wolfish and swinish blood arose in him. Let him now only go on drinking wine and liquor, and he will remain for ever a beast.”

For which invention the Elder Devil freely praised his Devil’s Imp, forgave him his failure with the stolen loaf, and promoted him in Hell.

NOTE:

[1] The short story “Wherein is Love, Therein is God”, by Leo Tolstoy, is available at our associated websites.

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In September 2016, after a careful analysis of the state of the esoteric movement worldwide, a group of students decided to form the Independent Lodge of Theosophists, whose priorities include the building of a better future in the different dimensions of life.  

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How Best to Judge People

Since There Is No Need to

Pretend That We Do Not Do So

Carlos Cardoso Aveline

Judging is that which we do before making decisions. Every decision is based on some sort of judgement. It is therefore no use to pretend we do not judge people or situations. We do that all the time. 

However, the idea of judging includes the duty of being just and fair. It provides us with the opportunity of paying attention to facts, a practice which is most beneficial - in the first place - to ourselves. 

One must observe the various aspects of reality, before making a correct judgement.  One’s viewpoint should be open to the acceptance of new facts. 

Reality is dynamic. It often surprises people, and it uses to defeat those who consistently refuse to look at the facts before them, or love convenience and comfort more than truth and sincerity. 

We will make mistakes in judging situations and people. We can learn from our defeats.  In that sense, our failings may constitute an immense treasure. 

Correct judgements are made where there is a feeling of individual responsibility. We need the courage to honestly look at our mistakes and the mistakes of others, and a determination to do our best at every occasion.  

The ability to go beyond moral relativism is unavoidable if we want to obtain real progress along the road to wisdom.

Making enduring decisions as to what is right and what is wrong provides us with an accurate sense of reality. Washing one’s hands of ethical issues is a dirty thing to do. He who refuses to judge in firm and transparent ways confesses his blindness and irresponsibility before Karma.

One must say “no” to the opposite of ethics and justice, if one has a feeling of respect for the idea of universal brotherhood and aims at the good of mankind. 

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An initial version of the above article was published in the September 2013 edition of “The Aquarian Theosophist”.

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On the role of the esoteric movement in the ethical awakening of mankind during the 21st century, see the book “The Fire and Light of Theosophical Literature”, by Carlos Cardoso Aveline.  

Published in 2013 by The Aquarian Theosophist, the volume has 255 pages and can be obtained through Amazon Books.

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Three Russian Prophets

An Approach to Alexei Khomiakov,

Feodor Dostoevsky and Vladimir Soloviev

Nicolas Zernov

Front cover and opening page of the British edition of 1944, with 171 pp.

Prologue to the Online edition of 2014

Russian culture and Slavophil tradition constitute a source of inspiration for those who have an interest in human future.  From Nikolay Fedorov to Leo Tolstoy, as from Piotr Kropotkin to Nicolas Berdyaev, not to mention the “three prophets” discussed in the present volume, Russian thinkers have been in the frontline regarding a creative and healthy view of human future, which is a key topic in the theosophy of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky.

It is not difficult to see that there is a significant common ground between Slavophilism and modern esoteric philosophy.[1] Elements of affinity will be visible to the readers of “Three Russian Prophets” in the case of Alexei Khomiakov and Feodor Dostoevsky.[2] In the ideas of Vladimir Soloviev, however, it is not easy to find a solid ground in common with theosophy: Helena P. Blavatsky wrote an answer to his criticisms towards theosophy, and his affinities with the Vatican are well-known.[3] In any case, it is interesting to theosophists to know some of  Soloviev’s ideas.

Nicolas Zernov’s book is an important tool in the building of a cultural and philosophical interaction between the “Russian Soul” and the Western part of our civilization. A natural bridge to Asia, the very “ethos” of Russia has much to say as to the future of our humanity.  

(Carlos Cardoso Aveline, in January 2014.)

Click Here to read

“Three Russian Prophets” in PDF

NOTES:

[1] Read the article “Slavophilism and Theosophy”, by Carlos Cardoso Aveline. It is available at our websites.

[2] See for instance the text “Alexei Khomiakov, on Brotherhood”, which can be found in our associated websites.

[3] Her article is published in our associated websites under the title of “Answer to a Russian Philosopher”, and with the subtitle “On the Eastern Sources of Modern Theosophy”.

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In September 2016, after a careful analysis of the state of the esoteric movement worldwide, a group of students decided to form the Independent Lodge of Theosophists, whose priorities include the building of a better future in the different dimensions of life.  

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