There Must Be an
Open Mind, a Pure Heart and
An Eager
Intellect, Before Attaining to Wisdom
Robert Crosbie
There is no
possible way of understanding or explaining the nature of any being whatever
except through Evolution, which is always an unfolding from within outwards,
the expression of spirit or consciousness through the intelligence acquired.
The will of spirit in action has produced everything that exists.
If we understand that intelligent will lies behind
everything that exists, is the cause of everything that is, is the Creator in
the universe, we may perhaps gain some idea of what it is necessary for us to
know in order properly to use our powers.
All stand as creators in the midst of our creations.
There are creators below us in the scale of intelligence. We stand in another
place, with a wider range of vision, a greater fund of experience; so we can
see that below us, infinitely below us, are beings so small that many of them
could be gathered on the point of a needle. Yet the scientists who have
examined them under many conditions cannot deny to these infinitesimal
organisms a certain intelligence, an ability to seek what they like and to
avoid what they dislike. From the smallest conceivable point of perception and
action there is a constantly widening range of expression, of evolution, a
development more and more in the direction of a greater range of being. This
evolution of intelligence, or soul, proceeds very slowly in the lower kingdoms,
more rapidly in the animal kingdom, and in man has reached that stage where the
being himself knows that he is, that he is conscious, that he can understand to
some extent his own nature and the natures of the beings below him, and see
their relation to each other.
Man has now reached a point where he begins to inquire
what more there is for him to know. He has ceased to think exclusively of the
material; he is sensing his own nature, and he asks, What am I, whence came I,
whither do I go?
If we have these ideas, we can perceive that there
must have been in the past some amongst men who asked these very questions that
we are now asking, and who took the steps that carried them to a higher point
of experience and knowledge than we now occupy. It is these very beings, now
above us, who form a stratum of consciousness, of knowledge and power, that we
have not - men who have passed through the stages we are now in. They are the
very ones who come to this earth as Saviors from time to time.
As Christians, we look back to the advent of One such,
and think of Him as unique. Yet He came in His time to but one small nation; He
said Himself that He came but to the Jews. Do we not know that every
civilization and every tribe that ever has existed has held a similar record - that
of some great Personage who came amongst them?
Back of all the religions that ever have been, there
is the record, the tradition, of some great Personage. And we find an
astonishing fact in studying the scriptures and teachings of other days - each
of these great Teachers taught the same doctrines. There is no difference
between the teachings of Jesus and the teachings of Buddha, although those
teachings are recorded in different languages and an interval of six hundred
years separated the two great Teachers. What is true of these two is likewise
true of all the other many Saviors of different times and peoples - they all
taught the same fundamental ideas.
This fact suggests that there is a body of Men, of
perfected men, product of past civilizations and evolution, our Elder Brothers,
in fact, who have acquired and are the Custodians of the knowledge and
experience gained through aeons of time. Their knowledge is actually the very
Science of Life, for it enters into every department of existence, of nature.
They know the natures and processes of the beings below man, and above man, as
we know the processes of ordinary every-day experience. This knowledge they
have preserved and recorded, and they have the memory of it, just as we have
the memory of yesterday’s experiences and events.
They have not extended their power to know. We have
each of us the same power to know that is theirs. But they have extended the
facilities of the instruments which they possess. They have improved what they
have. They have better brains. They have better bodies. How did they acquire
them? By fulfilling every duty which faced them, regardless of what came to
themselves. They thought nothing of acquiring power and knowledge for
themselves; they thought only of gaining power that they might expend it for
the benefit of every living creature. In so doing they opened the doors to the
full play of the power of the Spirit within.
We do the very opposite. We contract the divine power
of the Spirit within us to the pin-holes of personal desires and selfishness.
Do we not see that? Do we not see that we ourselves stand in the way of the use
of the power within us because our ideas are selfish, small, mean?
The great work of evolution proceeds from within
outwards. The Soul is the Perceiver; it looks directly on ideas. The action of
the will is through ideas. The ideas give the directions. Small ideas, small
force; large ideas, large force; the Force itself is illimitable, for it is the
force of Spirit, infinite and exhaustless. What we lack are universal ideas. We
need to arouse in ourselves that power of perception which will lay the whole
field of being open to us. A stream cannot rise higher than its source.
The nature of man can never be understood in the least
degree by the ideas and methods which modern psychologists and scientists and
popular religions are following. They all proceed from the basis of physical
life, many of them from the basis of one life only. They tabulate experiences
of many kinds, without any firm basis upon which to fix their thought, their
reason, and so never arrive at any definite conclusion or real knowledge of
what man is, or of the powers that he may exhibit. This is their use of the
creative power, but it is a limited use, a misuse. Those who follow that way
usually have some selfish purpose at the base of their desire, something they
wish to achieve for themselves, some benefit they desire for themselves. This
is not the way.
Theosophy says that if the desire or aspiration is
unselfish, noble, universal, then the force which flows through the individual
is grand, noble, universal in its character. Further, that every human being
has in him the same elements, the same possibilities, as any other, even the
noblest and highest beings in this or any solar system. This puts man in quite
a different position from where our religions, our science, or our philosophy
of the West place him. They all treat of man as if he were his body or his
mind, as if he were the creature and not the creator.
The body changes; we change our minds; but there is a
Something in us which does not change, which does not depend on change, whether
of body, mind or circumstances, but which is the creator, the ruler, the
experiencer of all changes of every kind. It is this portion of our nature -
the real Man within us - that we need to know the nature of. If we can reach
such a point of perception that we can grasp the fact of the Spirit within us,
we shall have reached a point where a knowledge of ourselves is possible; and
if a knowledge of ourselves, then a knowledge through that of all other beings
whatsoever.
The great Teachers point to the fact that the real
basis of man’s nature is Divinity, Spirit, God. Deity is not some other being,
however great. It is not something outside. It is the very highest in ourselves
and in all others. That is the God, and all that any man may know of this
Spirit is what he knows in himself, of himself, through himself. This is the
idea that all the ancients put forward in saying there is but one Self, and
that we are to see the Self in all things and all things in the Self. That is
what we all do to some extent; we see the Self, more or less. Nothing is seen
outside ourselves; everything that we see or know is within ourselves. But we
think of the Self in us as mortal, perishable, having no existence apart from
this body and this mind, and as separate from the Self in all other forms.
If we had within us and behind us all the power that
there is in the universe, and we had no channel through which that power could
flow - or only a narrow, twisted, distorted channel - that great Power would be
of no use to us, would be non-existent to us. To open up the channel it is
necessary for us to understand the real basis: the God within, immortal and
eternal, the Source of all being, our very selves; second, that all action
proceeds from that Source and Center of our being and of all being.
Then who is the constructor of all? How was all this
evolution brought about? All the beings involved in it make up both the world
and its inhabitants; all that exists is Self-produced, Self-evolved - the
creation of Spiritual beings acting in, on, and through each other. The whole
force of evolution, and the whole power behind it, is the human will, so far as
humanity is concerned. We do not realize that every form occupied by any being
is composed of Lives, each undergoing evolution on its own account, aided,
impelled or hindered by the force of the higher form of consciousness that
evolved it. For this universe is embodied
Consciousness, or Spirit. And just as a single drop of water contains
within it every element and characteristic of the whole ocean, so each being,
however low in the degree of its intelligence, contains within itself the
potentiality and possibilities of the highest. The will of the Spirit in action
has produced all.
The great Message of Theosophy has provided for every
interested enquirer the means by which he may know the truth about himself and
nature. Just as the Elder Brothers have provided in the past, so They have
again in our day. Everything that Humanity needs has been given to us. But can
you give to anyone what he does not want? Can you cause to enter into the mind
of another what that mind will not receive?
There has to be an open mind, a pure heart, an eager
intellect, an unveiled spiritual perception, before there is any hope for us.
As long as we are self-centered, as long as we are satisfied with what we know
and what we have, this great Message is not for us. It is for the hungry, for
the weary, for those who are desirous of knowledge, for those who see the
absolute paucity of what has been put before us as knowledge by those who style
themselves our teachers, for those who find no explanation anywhere of the
mysteries that surround us, who do not know themselves, who do not understand
themselves. For them there is a way; for them there is food in abundance; for
them this whole Movement is kept in being by one single will, the Will of the
Elder Brothers who have carried these great eternal truths through good and
evil in order that mankind may be benefited; not desiring any reward, not
desiring any recognition, desiring only that Their fellow men, Their younger
brothers, may know, may realize what They know.
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The above text is
reproduced from “The Friendly Philosopher”, by Robert Crosbie, Theosophy
Company, Los Angeles, U.S.A., 416 pp., 1945, pp. 268-273.
000
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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