Knowledge and
Confidence Are Part Of
The Right Effort In
the Search for Wisdom
John Garrigues
In ancient India, a Rajpoot Warrior took an oath by
his sword, and his shield
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Editorial Note:
The following article
was first
published
anonymously at “Theosophy”
magazine, in
November 1920, pp. 28-29.[1]
An analysis of its
contents and style indicates
it was written by John
Garrigues (1868-1944).
(CCA)
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
“The teachings of Theosophy are the science of war…”
John Garrigues
Let us premise
first, that there exists in all nature and in every organism the tendency to repeat any action once
performed; second, that there exists in every form of consciousness the power to change any action or course of
action.
These two distinctions of consciousness and form are
the essential duality behind all manifestation that is expressed in the words
Spirit and Matter.
No organism has any intelligence or any power of
action in itself; it is a product, an effect, not a cause. The body is not self
illuminative, neither is the mind; neither, it may be added, are any or all of
the “principles” in man or in Nature. The power
to initiate action, or to change action, or to perceive the results of action,
lies in the Consciousness and not in the form; in Spirit, not in Matter.
But every organism of any kind or quality is itself
composed of forms of consciousness or “Lives”, each with its own radius of
perception, initiation of action, and ability to change - all held together in
some sort of unison of action and coherence of direction by the power of a
superior Life which uses the combination as a vehicle or instrument for its own
action in a wider radius than it could achieve singly and alone.
The simile of an army, with its commanding general,
its officers, private soldiers and greater or less degree of discipline, is an
exact illustration of the nature of every organism, great or small. Man is an
organism in which the Ego is the commanding general, and his different
principles or sheaths in his army with its divisions and rank-and-file drawn
from every order of intelligence, every form of consciousness and action
possible in this solar system. The Masters are Egos who have put their army in
a state of perfect discipline and control, and are therefore capable of instant
and supreme power of action in any direction, on any plane of being.
The human being has not yet succeeded in disciplining
his army. He has all the necessary elements in his organism, but he is sure
neither of himself neither of his army. He lacks, first and foremost, confidence in himself, and secondly,
knowledge of what to do and how to do it. In other words, he is as yet exactly
as far from having a real army as he is far from being a real general. He has
the command, he has the power, for he and none other has summoned his levies from
the six directions in space; but he is by turns bold and timid, resolute and
vacillating, too severe and too lax.
It is clear that the individual entities composing the
“army” or nature, or principles, or bodies of man, have each their own
integrity, but it should be equally clear that the “army” has not summoned
itself, and as such has no initiative, no power of any kind, save as instigated
and directed by Man and the Ego, the general.
The teachings of Theosophy are the science of war,
which includes the formation, organization and disciplining of armies, as well
as the use to which that army is to be put when ready for war. The student is
the Ego learning and fitting himself to be a true General, and he has been
engaged in this task for countless lives, and has made some progress, but he has
made many mistakes, and these are reflected in the habits, tendencies and
qualities of his army.
No one can overcome these but himself. And he has to
remember that none but a very few of his soldiers have intelligence enough to
be entirely plastic and obedient to his instructions, directions, and orders.
They all have desires of their own, ambitions of their own, ideas of their own,
which run counter to his purposes and are destructive of all true discipline
from the army standpoint. If left to themselves they will run riot, become
wholly insubordinate, and at last disintegrate.
Of course he could kill his rebellious soldiers, but
if he did that they would be of no use in his army, and he needs them, every
one, if his army is to be complete; and it must be complete if he is to be
supreme on his field of battle. What he has to do is to kill out those
practices and tendencies in his soldiers which are subversive of discipline.
Only he can do that.
His efforts are retarded by the ignorance, the lack of
morale, the acquired characteristics
of the component elements of his soldiery; by his own mistaken tactics in the
past; by his own mistaken tactics in the past, by his lack of firmness in
enforcing obedience to his will. They constitute together the two great
obstacles in his path: the inertia in the individual soldiers; the rebellious
and seditious elements in his minor subdivisions.
Confidence in himself: confidence in his ability to
learn and apply the science of war; action
from these two bases is the trinity that will make of the human being a
Master of his army.
The longer we delay, the more we procrastinate and try
to hire or bribe or coax someone else to do our work for us, the more our army
becomes unmanageable. The more we listen to the clamor of the soldiery, the
more we yield to their infractions of discipline, the harder will be our task.
The more we shirk or shrink from study and effort, the greater the mountain of
inertia to be overcome.
Many lives already we have had to die, that is,
disband our army, without accomplishing the great task. Something we have learned,
but the two great things we have not yet learned; resolution - confidence in our ability and purpose - and work - sustained effort to learn and to
apply our teaching. To learn these two things demands self-discipline. For Nature, everywhere and inviolably, is an ordre pour le mérite. [2]
NOTES:
[1] We have kept the original
title, “The Law of Retardation”, and added a subtitle. (CCA)
[2] “An order according to merit”, in French. (CCA)
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The illustration
that opens the present article is reproduced from the book “Annals & Antiquities of Rajashtan”,
by James Tod, Selected and Abridged by E. Jaiwant Paul, Roli Books, New Delhi,
India, 2008, 141 pp.
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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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