Annie besant ancient wisdom. Ancient wisdom

24.09.2020

-------
| collection website
|-------
| Annie Besant
| Ancient wisdom
-------

To live well, one must think well, and Divine Wisdom - whether we call it by the ancient Sanskrit name Brahma-vidya or the more modern Greek name Theosophy - is just such a broad worldview as can satisfy the mind as a philosophy and, at the same time, give the world comprehensive religion and ethics. It was once said about the Christian scriptures that they contain places so accessible to everyone that a child could wade, and places so deep that only a giant could swim across them.
A similar definition can be made regarding Theosophy, for some of its teachings are so simple and applicable to life that any person with average development can both understand and implement them in his behavior, while others contain such depth that the most prepared the mind must strain all its strength to master them.
In this book an attempt will be made to lay before the reader the foundations of Theosophy in such a way as to clarify its main principles and truths, expressing a coherent view of the universe, and then to give such details as might facilitate the understanding of these principles and truths and their relationships. An elementary manual cannot claim to give the reader the fullness of knowledge, but it should give him clear basic concepts that he will be able to expand over time. The outline contained in this book gives me the main lines, so that in further study it remains only to fill them with the details necessary for a comprehensive knowledge.
It has long been noted that the great world religions have many common religious, ethical and philosophical ideas. But, while the fact itself has received general recognition, the reason for it causes a lot of disagreement. Some scholars admit that religions grew out of the soil of human ignorance, caused by the imagination of the savage, and were only gradually processed from the crude forms of animism and fetishism; their resemblance is attributed to primitive observations of the same natural phenomena, arbitrarily explained, the worship of the sun and stars being the common key to one school of thought, and phallic worship the same common key to the other. Fear, desire, ignorance and surprise led the savage to personify the forces of nature, and the priests took advantage of his fears and hopes, his vague fantasies and his bewilderment. Myths were gradually transformed into sacred scriptures, and symbols into facts, and since their foundations were the same everywhere, the similarity became inevitable. This is what the researchers of “Comparative Mythology” do, and although people are not convinced of their inability, they fall silent under the hail of strong evidence; they cannot deny the similarities, but at the same time their feeling protests: are the dearest hopes and the highest aspirations really nothing more than the result of the ideas of a savage and his hopeless ignorance? And is it possible that the great leaders of the human races, martyrs and heroes lived, fought and died only because they were deceived? Did they suffer because of the mere personification of astronomical facts, or because of the thinly disguised obscenities of barbarians?
Another explanation of the commonalities in the world's religions asserts the existence of a single original teaching, protected by the Brotherhood of great spiritual Teachers, whose origins date back to a different, earlier evolution.

These teachers acted as educators and leaders of the young humanity of your planet and transmitted to the various races and peoples in turn the basic religious truths in the form most suitable for them. The founders of great religions were members of a single Brotherhood, and their assistants in this great task were Initiates and disciples of various degrees, distinguished by insight, philosophical knowledge or high purity of life. They directed the activities of infant nations, established their mode of government, made laws for them, governed them as kings, taught them as teachers, led them as priests; all the peoples of antiquity revered these great beings, demigods and heroes, who left their traces in literature, architecture and legislation.
That such representatives of mankind really lived is difficult to deny in view of the world-wide tradition and ancient writings that have survived to this day, and in view of the numerous ruins and other silent witnesses that have no value only in the eyes of an ignorant person, the Sacred Books of the East are the best indicator of the greatness of those who compiled these books, for who in later times was capable of even approximately rising to the spiritual heights of their religious thought, to the illuminating light of their philosophy, to the breadth and purity of their ethical teachings? And when we find that these sacred books contain teachings about God, about man and about the universe, which are all identical in essence, although they differ in external forms, the inevitable conclusion from here is that all these teachings originate from a single source. To this one source we give the name of Divine Wisdom, in the Greek translation of Theosophy. As the origin and basis of all religions, it cannot be hostile to any religion. It only purifies them, revealing the valuable inner meaning of many things that have lost their original true form due to ignorant perversion and superficial superstitions. But Theosophy abides in all religions and in each it strives to reveal the wisdom contained in it. To become a Theosophist you do not have to renounce your religion. It is only necessary to penetrate more deeply into the essence of your own faith, to gain a firmer grasp of its spiritual truths and to approach its sacred teachings with a broader outlook. In ancient times, Theosophy brought religions into existence; in our times, it must justify and protect them. She is the rock from which all world religions were hewn, the spring from which they all flowed. Before the tribunal of the criticism of reason, it justifies the deepest aspirations and noblest emotions of the human heart; it confirms our hopes for the future and returns to us, ennobled, our faith in God. The truth of all this becomes more apparent as we study the various scriptures. It is enough to take a few extracts from the rich material available to us to establish this fact and give the student of this question the right direction in his search for further evidence. The main spiritual truths can be summarized as follows:
I. One. Eternal, Unknowable, Real Being.
II. From Him is the manifested God, revealing himself from unity into duality, from duality into Trinity.
III. From the manifested Trinity come spiritual, intelligent Essences that govern the order of the Cosmos.
IV. Man is a reflection of the manifested God and is therefore fundamentally threefold; his true real Self is eternal and one with the Self of the universe.
V. The evolution of man takes place through numerous incarnations; desires pull him towards embodiment, but he is freed from the need for embodiment through knowledge and self-sacrifice, becoming divine in active manifestation, just as he was always divine in a latent state.
//-- * * * --//
China, with its fossilized civilization, was inhabited in ancient times by the Turanians, the fourth sub-race of the indigenous Fourth Race, the race that lived in the lost Atlantis and spread its offspring throughout the world. The Mongols, the seventh and last sub-race of the same root race, joined later with the Turanians, who settled China; Thus, we have in this country traditions going back to the deepest antiquity, which preceded the establishment of the fifth Aryan race in India; in the Ching-Chiang-Ching (Classic of Purity) we have a passage from ancient Scripture of peculiar beauty, breathing that spirit of peace and tranquility that characterizes the “primitive teaching.”
Mr. Legge, in the preface to his translation, says that this treatise:
Attributed to Ko Yuan (Hsüan), a Taoist of the Wu dynasty (222-227 AD), about whom there is a tradition that he achieved the state of immortality, as he is usually called. He appears to be a miracle worker and at the same time intemperate and extremely eccentric in his manifestations. When he once experienced a shipwreck, he rose from the water in completely dry clothes and walked freely on the water surface. In the end, he ascended to heaven in broad daylight. All these stories can be considered fiction of later times.
Similar stories are constantly repeated about Initiates of various degrees, and they do not at all represent “fiction”; As for Ko-Yuan, it will be more interesting to listen to his own review of the book:
When I acquired the true Tao, I repeated this “Jing” (book) ten thousand times. This is what the Spirits in Heaven do and what has never been reported to the scientists of this lower world. I received this book from the divine Ruler of the eastern Hwa; he received it from the divine Ruler of the Golden Gate; he received it from the Royal Mother of the West.
"Divine Ruler of the Golden Gate" was the title of the Initiate who ruled the Toltec kingdom in Atlantis, and the presence of this title in the book shows that Jing-Jiang-Jing was transferred from the Toltecs to China when the Turanians separated from the Toltecs. This assumption is confirmed by the contents of a short treatise concerning Tao, which means “The Way,” a name that in the ancient Turanian and Mongolian religion denoted the One Reality. We read:
The Great Tao has no corporeal form, but it produces and nourishes Heaven and Earth. The Great Tao has no passions, but it makes the sun and moon revolve. The Great Tao has no name, but it causes growth and preserves all things (I, 1).
Here we have God manifested as unity, but after that duality arises:
Now Tao (appears in two forms) Pure and Impure, and has (two conditions) Movement and Rest. The sky is clean, but the earth is unclean; the sky moves, but the earth is motionless. Male is pure, and female is unclean; the masculine is in motion, and the feminine is motionless. The root (Purity) descended, and the (impure) outpouring spread far away, and thus all things were produced (I, 2).
This passage is especially interesting because it indicates the active and receptive side of Nature, the difference between the generating Spirit and the nurturing Matter, an idea which appears so often in later writings.
In the Tao Te Ching, the doctrine of the Unmanifest and the Manifest is expressed very clearly:
The Tao, which can be trampled upon, is not the eternal and unchanging Tao. The name that can be designated is not an eternal and unchanging name. He who has no name is the Creator of heaven and earth; having a name this is the Mother of all things... Under both species it is truly one and the same, but when development begins, It receives different names. Both together are called "The Mystery" (I, 2, 2, 4).
Students of Kabbalah will remember one of the divine Names: “The Hidden Secret.” And again:
There was something indefinite and whole, existing before heaven and earth. How quiet it was and formless, and out of danger (of being exhausted). One can consider him as the Mother of all things. I do not know its name, and I give it the designation Tao. Making an effort to give it a name, I call it Great. Great, It moves (in constant flow). Moving, It moves away. Having departed, It returns back (XXV, 1-3).
What is extremely interesting here is the idea of speaking out and returning the One Life, so. well known to us from Hindu literature. The verse also seems familiar:
Everything under heaven came from Him as being (and named); This existence came from Him as non-existent (and not named) (XI, 2).
In order for the universe to come into being, the Unmanifested One had to produce the One from whom duality and triplicity came:
Tao produced one; One produced Two; Two produced Three; Three produced all the things. All things leave behind them the Darkness (from which they came) and move forward to be enclosed in the Light (into which they entered), being brought into consonance by the Breath of the Void (XLII, 1).
"Breath of Space" would be a better expression. Since everything came from Him, He exists in everything:
The great Tao permeates everything. It is located both on the right and on the left... It clothes all things as if in a covering and does not assign to itself dominion over them. It can be named in the smallest things. All things return (to their root and disappear), not knowing that It controls their return. It can be named in the greatest things” (XXXIV, 1, 2).
Chuang Tzu (Chwang-ze, in the 4th century BC), in his presentation of ancient teachings, refers to spiritual intelligent Beings descending from Tao:
He has both the root and cause of their existence in Himself. Before there was heaven and earth, more ancient than that, He existed in complete safety. From Him came the mysterious existence of Spirits, from Him the mysterious existence of gods (Book VI, part 1, section VI, 7).
The names of these spiritual Beings are then enumerated, but the part they play in Chinese religion is so well known that it would be superfluous to give quotations relating to them.
Man is viewed as a threefold being: “Taoism,” says Legge, “recognizes in man spirit, mind and body.” This division is clearly expressed in the Jing-Jiang-Jing, the teaching that man must destroy desire in himself in order to unite with the One.
The spirit of man loves purity, but his thought violates it. The human soul loves silence, but desires violate it. If he could always drive away his desires, his soul would come of its own accord to silence. Let his thought become pure, then his spirit will be purified... The reason why people do not achieve purity is that their thoughts were not purified and their desires were not driven away. If a person is able to expel desires and if he then looks inside himself, into his thoughts, they are no longer his; and if he then looks at his body from the outside, it is no longer his; and if he looks into the distance at external things, he no longer has anything in common with them (I, 3, 4).
Then, after listing the steps leading “to a state of complete peace,” the question is posed:
In such a state of peace, independent of place, how can desire arise? If desire no longer arises, true peace and silence sets in. This true silence becomes a permanent quality and responds (unmistakably) to external things; verily, this faithful and constant quality holds nature in its power. In such constant response and in such constant silence there is constant density and peace. He who possesses this absolute purity gradually enters (inhalation) the True Tao (I, 5).
The word “inhalation” added by the translator rather obscures than clarifies the meaning, since “entering Tao” is fully consistent with the whole thought and is consistent with other Scriptures.
Taoism gives the destruction of desire great importance; one of the interpreters of Jing-Jiang-Jing notes that understanding the Tao depends on absolute purity, and
The acquisition of such Absolute Purity depends entirely on the removal (from the soul) of desires, which is the urgent, practical lesson of the entire Treatise.
Tao Te Ching says:

We must always be found without desires,
If we want to measure His deep mystery;
But if the desire remains in us forever,
We will see only its outer edge (1, 3).

The idea of reincarnation in Taoism is less clear than one might expect, although there are passages from which it is clear that the main idea was taken in the affirmative sense. Thus, Chuang Tzu tells an original and wise story about a dying man to whom a friend addresses the following words:
“Truly great is the Creator! What will He deign to do to you now? Where will it take you? Will he make you into a rat’s liver or an insect’s foot?” Tselai objected: “Wherever the father sends his son: to the east, to the west, to the south or to the north, the son simply obeys the order... And here is the great Foundryman, busy casting his metal. And if the metal, boiling in a cauldron, said: “I want a (sword like) Moijsh to be made from me,” the great Founder would probably find it strange. And also, if the form, formed in the mother’s bowels, said: “I must become a man.” The creator would probably find this strange. If we once understand that heaven and earth are a great melting pot, and the Creator is a great Founder, does it matter no matter where we are directed? We are born, as it were, from a peaceful sleep, and we die to a peaceful awakening (Bk. VI, part 1, section VI.).
Turning to the Fifth Aryan Race, we have the same teachings embodied in the oldest and greatest of the Aryan religions - Brahmanism. Eternal Being is proclaimed in the Chandogya Upanishad as “One One without a second” and it is written there:
One wanted: I will multiply for the sake of the universe (VI, ii, 1, 3).
The highest Logos, Brahman, is threefold: Existence, Consciousness, Bliss; said:
From Him arises life, intelligence and all senses, ether, air, fire, water and the earth that supports everything.
Nowhere are there more majestic descriptions of the Divine than in the Hindu Holy Scriptures, but they have already become so well known that a short excerpt will suffice, which can serve as an example of descriptions sparkling like precious stones:
Manifested, close, moving in a secret place, an eternal Refuge, where everything that moves, breathes and closes its eyes resides. Know that one should worship This Being and Non-Being, the Most Perfect, Exceeding the understanding of all beings. Luminous, subtler than the subtlest, the worlds with all their inhabitants rest on Him. That is the primordial Brahman; He is also Life, and Voice, and Reason... In the golden, highest cover resides the immaculate, indivisible Brahman; that is the purest Light of Lights, cognizable only by those who know the one Self... That immortal Brahman is in front, Brahman is behind, Brahman on the right and on the left, below, above, all-pervading: this Brahman truly is Everything...
Above the universe, Brahman is great, the highest, hidden in all beings according to their corporeality, the single Breath of the entire universe, the Lord, those who know Whom (people) become immortal. I have known Him, the Imperishable, the Ancient, the Soul of all, Omnipresent by nature, Whom those who know call the Unborn, Whom they call the Eternal.
When there is no darkness, no bottom or night, no being or non-being, (there is) only Shiva alone; That Indestructible, That Savitri subject to deification, from Him came the Ancient Wisdom. Neither above, nor below, nor in the middle it is possible to comprehend Him, and there is nothing that could compare with Him, whose name is endless Glory. And His form cannot be seen by sight, for no one is able to contemplate Him with the eyes; those who know Him with the heart and the mind abiding in the heart become immortal.
The idea that the true Self of man is one with the Self of the entire universe, that “I am That” permeates the Hindu consciousness to such an extent that such expressions as “the divine city of Brahman” and “the city of nine gates” or “God lives” are often applied to man in the depths of his heart."
“Only in one way can one know (Being), which cannot be proven, which is eternal, immaculate, above the ether, unborn, the great eternal Soul... The Great Unborn Soul, the same one that abides as a rational (soul) in all living beings, the same one that resides like ether in the heart; She sleeps in it. She subjugates everything and controls everything; She is the highest Lord of everything, She does not increase from good deeds and does not decrease from bad deeds. She directs everything, the supreme Lord of all things, the Almighty, the Bridge, the Support of the worlds, so that they cannot be destroyed.
When God is considered from the point of view of the evolution of the universe, His trinity is expressed quite clearly in the idea of \u200b\u200bShiva, Vishnu and Brahma, or in the symbol of Vishnu sleeping under the waters, with the Lotus growing from its depths, and in the Lotus - Brahma. Man is also threefold in nature and in the Mandukya Upanishad the highest Self of man is described as enclosed in the physical body, in the subtle body and in the mental body (the body of thought) and then rising from the limitations of these bodies to the One “without duality”. From the Trimurti (Trinity) come many Gods who are in charge of the evolution of the universe, to whom the following words are addressed in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad:
Worship, O Gods, Him, in whose likeness the days of the final year roll, adore the Light of Lights as Eternal Life.
It is hardly even necessary to mention that Brahmanism contains within itself the doctrine of reincarnation; his whole philosophy of life is based on the journey of the Soul through numerous births and deaths, and there is not a single sacred book in which this truth is not recognized. Desires bind a person to the wheel of change; therefore, he can free himself only through knowledge, devotion to the Supreme and the destruction of desires. The soul that has cognized God is liberated, the Mind, purified by knowledge, contemplates Him, Knowledge combined with piety finds the abode of Brahman. He who knows Brahman becomes Brahman himself. When desires cease, mortals become immortal and attain Brahman.
Buddhism, in its northern form, completely coincides with the most ancient beliefs of Brahmanism, but in its southern form it has lost the idea of the Trinitarian Logos, as well as the idea of the One Being from which the Trinity emanates. The Logos, in its threefold manifestation, is designated in northern Buddhism as follows: First Logos, Amitabha, Infinite Light; Second, Avalokiteskara or Padmapani (Chenrezig); The third, Manjushri - the representative of creative Wisdom, corresponds to Brahma. Chinese Buddhism does not seem to contain the idea of a primary Being other than the Logos, but Nepalese Buddhism recognizes Adi-Buddha, from which Amitabha comes. Padmapani, according to Eitel, is a representative of compassionate Providence and corresponds in part to Shiva, but, as one of the aspects of the Buddhist Trinity, Padmapani is rather the idea of Vishnu, with whom she also has a common symbol, the Lotus (fire and water, or Spirit and Matter, as the primary components universe). Reincarnation and karma are so well known as the foundations of Buddhism that it is hardly necessary to enlarge upon them; one should only note the path of liberation and the fact that Buddha, as a Hindu, preaching to Hindus, had in mind the Brahmanical doctrines as the basis of his teachings, beyond doubt. He was a reformer, he purified religion, but did not fight against it, he attacked only the impurities introduced by ignorance, and not the fundamental truths coming from ancient Wisdom.
Those who walk on the path of the law, correctly learned, reach the other shore of the great sea of birth and death, which is difficult to cross.
Desire binds a person, and it is necessary to free oneself from its power.

Annie Besant

Ancient wisdom

(Outline of Theosophical Teachings)

Introduction. Basic unity of all religions

To live well, you need to think well, and Divine Wisdom - shall we call it by its ancient Sanskrit name brahma-vidya or a more modern Greek name theosophy- is precisely such a broad worldview that is capable of satisfying the mind as a philosophy and, at the same time, giving the world a comprehensive religion and ethics. It was once said about the Christian scriptures that they contain places so accessible to everyone that a child could wade, and places so deep that only a giant could swim across them.

A similar definition can be made regarding Theosophy, for some of its teachings are so simple and applicable to life that any person with average development can both understand and implement them in his behavior, while others contain such depth that the most prepared the mind must strain all its strength to master them.

In this book an attempt will be made to lay before the reader the foundations of Theosophy in such a way as to clarify its main principles and truths, expressing a coherent view of the universe, and then to give such details as might facilitate the understanding of these principles and truths and their relationships. An elementary manual cannot claim to give the reader the fullness of knowledge, but it should give him clear basic concepts that he will be able to expand over time. The outline contained in this book gives me the main lines, so that in further study it remains only to fill them with the details necessary for a comprehensive knowledge.

It has long been noted that the great world religions have many common religious, ethical and philosophical ideas. But, while the fact itself has received general recognition, the reason for it causes a lot of disagreement. Some scholars admit that religions grew out of the soil of human ignorance, caused by the imagination of the savage, and were only gradually processed from the crude forms of animism and fetishism; their resemblance is attributed to primitive observations of the same natural phenomena, arbitrarily explained, the worship of the sun and stars being the common key to one school of thought, and phallic worship the same common key to the other. Fear, desire, ignorance and surprise led the savage to personify the forces of nature, and the priests took advantage of his fears and hopes, his vague fantasies and his bewilderment. Myths were gradually transformed into sacred scriptures, and symbols into facts, and since their foundations were the same everywhere, the similarity became inevitable. This is what the researchers of “Comparative Mythology” do, and although people are not convinced of their inability, they fall silent under the hail of strong evidence; they cannot deny the similarities, but at the same time their feeling protests: are the dearest hopes and the highest aspirations really nothing more than the result of the ideas of a savage and his hopeless ignorance? And is it possible that the great leaders of the human races, martyrs and heroes lived, fought and died only because they were deceived? Did they suffer because of the mere personification of astronomical facts, or because of the thinly disguised obscenities of barbarians?

Another explanation of the commonalities in the world's religions asserts the existence of a single original teaching, protected by the Brotherhood of great spiritual Teachers, whose origins date back to a different, earlier evolution. These teachers acted as educators and leaders of the young humanity of your planet and transmitted to the various races and peoples in turn the basic religious truths in the form most suitable for them. The founders of great religions were members of a single Brotherhood, and their assistants in this great task were Initiates and disciples of various degrees, distinguished by insight, philosophical knowledge or high purity of life. They directed the activities of infant nations, established their mode of government, made laws for them, governed them as kings, taught them as teachers, led them as priests; all the peoples of antiquity revered these great beings, demigods and heroes, who left their traces in literature, architecture and legislation.

Add to favorites

Annie Besant

ANCIENT WISDOM
(Outline of Theosophical Teachings)

INTRODUCTION
Basic unity of all religions
To live well, one must think well, and Divine Wisdom - whether we call it by the ancient Sanskrit name Brahma-Vidya or the more modern Greek name Theosophy - is precisely that broad worldview which can satisfy the mind as philosophy and at the same time give the world a comprehensive religion and ethics. It was once said about the Christian scriptures that they contain such accessible places that a child could wade, and such depths that only a giant could swim across.
A similar definition can be made regarding Theosophy, for some of its teachings are so simple and applicable to life that any person with average development can understand them and implement them in his behavior, while others contain such depth that the most a prepared mind must exert every effort to master them.
In this book an attempt will be made to present to the reader the foundations of Theosophy in such a way as to clarify its main principles and truths, expressing a coherent idea of the universe, and then to give such details as could facilitate the understanding of these principles and truths and their relationships. An elementary manual cannot claim to give the reader the fullness of knowledge, but it should give him clear basic concepts that he will be able to expand over time. The essay contained in this book will give all the main lines, so that upon further study it remains only to fill them with the details necessary for comprehensive knowledge.
It has long been noted that the great world religions have many common religious, ethical and philosophical ideas. But while the fact itself has received general recognition, the reason for it causes a lot of disagreement. Some scholars admit that religions grew out of the soil of human ignorance, caused by the imagination of the savage, and were only gradually processed from the crude forms of animism and fetishism; their similarity is attributed to primitive observations of the same natural phenomena, arbitrarily explained, the worship of the sun and stars being the common key to one school of thought, and phallic worship the same common key to the other. Fear, desire, ignorance and surprise led the savage to personify the forces of nature, and the priests took advantage of his fears and hopes, his vague fantasies and his bewilderment. Myths were gradually transformed into sacred scriptures, and symbols into facts, and since their foundations were the same everywhere, the similarity became inevitable. So say the researchers of Comparative Mythology, and unscientific people, although not convinced, fall silent under the hail of weighty evidence; they cannot deny the similarities, but at the same time their feeling protests: are the dearest hopes and the highest aspirations really nothing more than the result of the ideas of a savage and his hopeless ignorance? And is it possible that the great leaders of the human races, martyrs and heroes lived, fought and died only because they were deceived? Did they suffer because of the mere personification of astronomical facts, or because of the thinly disguised obscenities of barbarians?
Another explanation of the commonalities in the world's religions asserts the existence of a single original teaching, protected by the Brotherhood of great spiritual Teachers, whose origins date back to a different, earlier evolution. These teachers acted as educators and leaders of the young humanity of our planet and transmitted to the various races and peoples in turn the basic religious truths in the form most suitable for them. The founders of great religions were members of a single Brotherhood, and their assistants in this great task were Initiates and students of various degrees, distinguished by insight, philosophical knowledge or high purity of life. They directed the activities of infant nations, established their mode of government, made laws for them, governed them as kings, taught them as teachers, led them as priests; all the peoples of antiquity revered these great beings, demigods and heroes, who left their traces in literature, architecture and legislation.
That such representatives of humanity really lived is difficult to deny in view of the world-wide tradition and ancient writings that have survived to this day, and in view of the numerous ruins and other silent witnesses that have no value only in the eyes of an ignorant person. The sacred books of the East are the best indicator of the greatness of those who compiled these books, for who was capable in later times of even approximately rising to the spiritual height of their religious thought, to the illuminating light of their philosophy, to the breadth and purity of their ethical teachings? And when we find that these sacred books contain teachings about God, about man and about the universe, which are all identical in essence, although they differ in external forms, the inevitable conclusion from here is that all these teachings originate from a single source. We give this single source the name of Divine Wisdom, in Greek translation - Theosophy. As the origin and basis of all religions, it cannot be hostile to any religion. It only purifies them, revealing the valuable inner meaning of many things that have lost their original true form due to ignorant perversion and superficial superstitions. But Theosophy abides in all religions and in each it strives to reveal the wisdom contained in it. To become a Theosophist you do not have to renounce your religion. You just need to penetrate more deeply into the essence of your own faith, firmly master its spiritual truths and approach its sacred teachings with a broader outlook. In ancient times, Theosophy brought religions to life, in our times it must justify and protect them. She is the rock from which all world religions were hewn, the spring from which they all flowed. Before the tribunal of the criticism of reason, it justifies the deepest aspirations and noblest emotions of the human heart; it confirms our hopes for the future and returns to us, ennobled, our faith in God. The truth of all this becomes more apparent as we study the various scriptures. It is enough to take a few extracts from the rich material available to us to establish this fact and give the student of this question the right direction in his search for further evidence. The main spiritual truths can be summarized as follows:
I. One. Eternal, Unknowable, Real Being.
II. From it is the manifested God, revealing himself from unity into duality, from duality into Trinity.
III. From the manifested Trinity come spiritual, intelligent Essences that govern the order of the Cosmos.
IV. Man is a reflection of the manifested God and is therefore fundamentally threefold; his true real self is eternal and one with the Self of the universe.
V. Human evolution occurs through numerous incarnations; desires pull him towards embodiment, but he is freed from the need for embodiment through knowledge and self-sacrifice, becoming divine in active manifestation, just as he was always divine in a latent state.
China, with its fossilized civilization, was inhabited in ancient times by the Turanians, the fourth sub-race of the indigenous Fourth Race, the race that lived in the lost Atlantis and spread its offspring throughout the world. The Mongols, the seventh and last sub-race of the same root race, joined later with the Turanians, who settled China; Thus, we have in this country traditions coming from the deepest antiquity, preceding the establishment of the Fifth Aryan Race in India; in the Ching-Chian-Ching (Classic of Purity) we have a passage from an ancient Scripture of peculiar beauty, breathing that spirit of peace and tranquility that characterizes the “original teaching.” Mr. Legge, in the preface to his translation,1 says that this treatise is attributed to Ko Yuan (Hsuan), a Taoist of the By dynasty (222-227 A.D.), about whom there is a tradition that he achieved the state of immortality, as it is usually called. He appears to be a miracle worker and at the same time intemperate and extremely eccentric in his manifestations. When he once experienced a shipwreck, he rose from the water in completely dry clothes and walked freely on the water surface. At the end, he ascended to heaven in broad daylight. All these stories can be considered fiction of later times.
Similar stories are constantly repeated about Initiates of various degrees, and they do not at all represent “fiction”; As for Ko Yuan, it will be more interesting to listen to his own review of the book:
When I acquired the true Tao, I repeated this “Jing” (book) ten thousand times. This is what the Spirits in Heaven do and what has never been reported to the scientists of this lower world. I received this book from the Divine Ruler of the eastern Hwa, he received it from the Divine Ruler of the Golden Gate; he received it from the Royal Mother of the West.
"Divine Ruler of the Golden Gate" was the title of the Initiate who ruled the Toltec kingdom in Atlantis, and the presence of this title in the book shows that Jing-Jian-Jing was transferred from the Toltecs to China when the Turanians separated from the Toltecs. This assumption is confirmed by the contents of a short treatise concerning Tao, which means “The Way,” a name that in the ancient Turanian and Mongolian religion denoted the One Reality. We read:
The Great Tao has no corporeal form, but it produces and nourishes heaven and earth. The Great Tao has no passions, but it makes the sun and moon revolve. The Great Tao has no name, but it causes growth and preserves all things (I, 1).
Here we have God manifested as unity, but after that duality arises:
Now Tao (appears in two forms) Pure and Impure, and has (two conditions) Movement and Rest. The sky is clean, but the earth is unclean; the sky moves, but the earth is motionless. Male is pure, and female is unclean; the masculine is in motion, and the feminine is motionless. The root (Purity) descended, and the (impure) outpouring spread far away, and thus all things were produced (I, 2).
This passage is especially interesting because it indicates the active and receptive side of Nature, the difference between the generating Spirit and the nurturing Matter, an idea which appears so often in later writings.
In the Tao Te Ching, the doctrine of the Unmanifested and the Manifested is expressed very clearly:
The Tao, which can be trampled upon, is not the eternal and unchanging Tao. The name that can be designated is not an eternal and unchanging name. He who has no name is the Creator of heaven and earth; having a name is the Mother of all things... Under both species it is truly the same, but when development begins, It receives different names. Both together are called "The Mystery" (I, 2, 2, 4).
Students of Kabbalah will remember one of the Divine Names: “The Hidden Secret.” And again:
There was something vague and whole that existed before heaven and earth. How quiet it was, and formless, and in no danger (of being exhausted). One can consider him as the Mother of all things. I do not know its name, and I give it the designation Tao. Making an effort to give it a name, I call it Great. Great, It moves (in constant flow). Moving, It moves away. Having departed, It returns back (XXV, 1-3).
What is extremely interesting here is the idea of the appearance and return of the One Life, so familiar to us from Hindu literature. The verse also seems familiar:
Everything under heaven came from Him as being (and named); This existence came from Him as non-existent (and not named) (XI, 2).
In order for the universe to come into being, the Unmanifested One had to produce the One from whom duality and triplicity came:
Tao produced One; One produced Two; Two produced Three; Three produced all the things. All things leave behind them the Darkness (from which they came) and move forward to be enclosed in the Light (into which they have entered), being brought into consonance by the Breath of the Void (XLII, 1).
"Breath of Space" would be a better expression. Since everything came from Him, He exists in everything:
Everything is permeated by the great Tao. It is located both on the right and on the left... It clothes all things as if in a covering and does not assign to itself dominion over them. It can be named in the smallest things. All things return (to their root and disappear), not knowing that It controls their return. It can be named in the greatest things (XXXIV, 1, 2).
Tswang-tzu (Chwang-ze, who taught in the 4th century BC) in his presentation of ancient teachings refers to spiritual intelligent Beings descending from Tao:
It has both the root and the reason for their existence in Itself. Before there was heaven and earth, more ancient than that, It existed in complete safety. From Him came the mysterious existence of Spirits, from Him the mysterious existence of Gods (Book VI, part 1, section VI, 7).
The names of these spiritual Beings are then enumerated, but the part they play in Chinese religion is so well known that it would be superfluous to give quotations relating to them.
Man is considered as a threefold being:
“Taoism,” says Legge, “recognizes the spirit, mind and body in man.” This division is clearly expressed in the Jing-Jian-Jing, the teaching that man must destroy desire in order to unite with the One.
The spirit of man loves purity, but his thought violates it. The human soul loves silence, but desires violate it. If he could always drive away his desires, his soul would come of its own accord to silence. Let his thought become pure, then his spirit will be purified... The reason why people do not achieve purity is that their thoughts were not purified and their desires were not driven away. If a person is able to expel desires and if he then looks inside himself, into his thoughts, they are no longer his; and if he then looks at his body from the outside, it is no longer his; and if he looks into the distance at external things, he no longer has anything in common with them (I, 3, 4).
Then, after listing the steps leading “to a state of complete rest,” the question is posed:
In such a state of peace, independent of place, how can desire arise? If desire no longer arises, true peace and silence sets in. This true silence becomes a permanent property and responds (unmistakably) to external things; verily, this faithful and constant quality holds nature in its power. In such constant recall and in such constant silence there is constant purity and peace. He who possesses this absolute purity gradually enters (inhalation) of the True Tao (I, 5).
The word “inhalation” added by the translator rather obscures than clarifies the meaning, since “enters Tao” is fully consistent with the whole thought and is consistent with other Scriptures.
Taoism attaches great importance to the destruction of desire; one of the interpreters of the Jing-Jian-Jing notes that understanding the Tao depends on absolute purity, and the acquisition of such Absolute Purity depends entirely on the removal (from the soul) of desires, which is the urgent, practical lesson of the entire Treatise.
Tao Te Ching says:
We must always be found without desires, If we want to measure His deep mystery;
But if desire remains in us forever, Only its outer edge will we see (I, 3).
The idea of reincarnation in Taoism is less clear than might be expected, although there are passages from which it appears that the main idea was taken in an affirmative sense. Thus, Tswang Tzu tells an original and wise story about a dying man to whom a friend addresses himself with the following words:
“Truly great is the Creator! What will He now deign to make you? Where will He take you? Will He make you into a rat’s liver or an insect’s paw?” Tselai objected: “Wherever the father sends his son: to the east, to the west, to the south or to the north, the son simply obeys the order... And here is the great Foundryman, busy casting his metal. And if the metal, having boiled in a cauldron, said: “I want a sword like Moishe to be made from me,” the great Founder would probably have found this strange. And also, if the form, formed in the mother’s bowels, had said: “I must become a man,” the Creator , probably would find it strange. If we once understand that heaven and earth are a great melting pot, and the Creator is a great Foundry Man.
Elaborating on the latter idea, Dr. Gaug says:
This is the primary Zoroastrian idea of creative Spirits, which form only two sides of the single Divine Essence. But in the course of time this doctrine of the great founder of religion was changed and distorted due to misunderstandings and misinterpretations. Spentomainyush ("good Spirit") was adopted as the name of Ahuramazda Himself, and then Angromainyush ("evil Spirit"), finally separated from Ahuramazda, began to be considered as the constant opponent of Ahuramazda; thus arose the dualism of God and the Devil (p. 205).
Dr. Gaug's view finds support in the Gatha Ahunavaiti, which was, according to legend, transmitted by the "Archangels" along with other Gathas to Zoroaster:
In the beginning, there was a pair of Twins, two Spirits, each of them showed a special activity, namely: good and evil... And these two Spirits, having united, created the first (material substance); one is reality, the other is unreality... And in order to promote this life (to increase it), Armaiti appeared with its riches, with a good and true Mind; she, eternally existing, created the material world... All perfect things, which are known as the best of beings, are collected in the magnificent abode of Good Reason. Wise and Righteous (lasna, XXX, 3, 4, 7, 10. De Haug's Transl., pp. 149, 151).
Here three Logos are clearly distinguishable: Ahuramazda - the first beginning, the supreme life; in Him and through Him - the “Twins”, or the Second Logos; then Armaiti - Reason, Creator of the Universe, Third Logos. Later Mithra appears and in exoteric faith obscures to some extent the primary truth; it says about Him:
Whom Ahuramazda established to observe the moving world and take care of it; Who, never falling asleep, always awake, guards the creation of Ahuramazda (Mihir yast, XXV, 1, 103; The Sacred Books of the East, XVIII).
Mitra was a subordinate God, the Light of Heaven, just as Varuna was Heaven itself, one of the great ruling Spirits. The highest of these ruling Spirits were the six Ameshaspends, whose head was considered Vohuman, the Good Thought of Ahuramazda,
Who ruled the entire material creation (The Sacred Books of the East, V, p. 10, note).
The doctrine of reincarnation is not found in hitherto translated books, and it is not common among modern Parsis. But we find there the idea of the Spirit contained in Man, like a spark, which must turn into a flame and unite with the Supreme Fire, which implies development, for which reincarnation is necessary. And in general, the religion of Zoroaster cannot be understood until the Chaldean Oracles and the accompanying scriptures are restored, for in them lies the true root of this religion.
Heading west into Greece, we encounter the Orphic system, described with such profound learning by J. Mead in his work Orpheus. "Inscrutable, Thrice Unknowable Darkness" was the name given to the One Being.
According to the theology of Orpheus, all things come from the immense Principle, to which we decide - because of the limitations and poverty of the human concept - to give a name, although He is completely inexpressible and in the reverent speech of Ancient Egypt is the thrice unknowable Darkness, the contemplation of which is capable of turning all knowledge into ignorance (Thomas Taylar, quoted in Mead's Orpheus, p. 93).
From here comes the “Primary Triad”: World Good, World Soul, World Mind - again the same Divine Trinity. Regarding this idea, J. Mead expresses himself as follows:
The First Triad, which appears before the mind, is only a reflection and substitute of That which cannot be expressed, and its Hypostases are the following:
a) Good that is supernatural; b) Soul (World Soul), which is the self-causal Essence, and in Mind, the indivisible, immutable Essence (ibid., p. 94).
After the first there appears a series of gradually descending Triads, which possess the properties of the first, but the brightness of these properties decreases more and more until it reaches a person,
Containing potentially the sum and substance of the universe... “The race of men and gods is one and the same” (the words of Pindar, who was a Pythagorean, quoted by St. Clement. Strom., V, p. 709)... Therefore, man received the name the microcosm, or small universe, as opposed to the macrocosm, the great universe (ibid., p. 271).
Man has a "VODO" (Nous) or real mind, a "Logos" or rational part, and an "Alogos" or irrational part; the last two each reveal a new Triad, thus forming a more developed sevenfold division. According to this view, a person has three bodies, or vehicles - a physical, subtle and luminous body, or "augoeTdes", which is the "body of causality", or the karmic clothing of the soul, in which its entire destiny is collected, or otherwise: all the seeds of all causality of the past. This is the “thread-soul,” as it is sometimes called, the “body” that passes from one incarnation to another (ibid., p. 284).
Regarding transformation:
Together with all the followers of the Mysteries of all countries, the Orphics believed in reincarnation (ibid., p. 292).
In support of this, J. Mead gives abundant evidence and proves that Plato, Empedocles, Pythagoras and others taught about reincarnation. Only by living a righteous life can people escape the wheel of birth.
Tylor, in his notes to the Selected Works of Plotinus, quotes the words of Damascene regarding Plato's teachings about the One beyond the Logos, about the Unmanifested Being:
It is possible that Plato, in fact, leads us in an inscrutable way through the One, as through a mediator, to the Ineffable, abiding above the One in question, and this is accomplished through the sacrifice of the One, just as he leads to the One through the sacrifice of other things. .. That which is on the other side of the One must be revered in perfect silence... The One actually wants to exist by itself without any other; but the Unknown on the other side of the One is completely ineffable, and we testify that we can neither know it nor not know it, and that it is hidden from us by super-ignorance. Hence, thanks to its proximity to the latter, the One is obscured, for, being close to the immense Principle, if I may put it this way, the One, as it were, resides in the sanctuary of this truly mystical Silence... This Principle is located above the One and above all materiality, being simpler than they (pp. 341-343).
The Pythagorean, Platonic and Neoplatonic schools have so many points of contact with Hindu and Buddhist thought that their origin from the same source is quite obvious. R. Garbe, in his Die Sankhya Philosophic (III, pp. 85 to 105), points out many of these points of agreement, and his conclusions may be briefly expressed as follows:
The most striking thing is the similarity or, rather, the identity of the doctrine of One and the One in the Upanishads and in the Eleatic school. The teaching of Xenophanes regarding the unity of God and the Cosmos and the immutability of the One, and even more the teaching of Parmenides, who recognized that reality can only be attributed to the One unborn, indestructible and omnipresent, while everything heterogeneous and subject to change is only appearance; and further: that Being and Thinking are one and the same; all these doctrines are completely identical in essential features with the content of the Upanishads and the Vedantic philosophy, which arose from them. And Thales’s even earlier idea that everything that exists came from Water is quite similar to the Vedic doctrine about the emergence of the Universe from primordial waters. Later, Anaximander took as the basis (archl) scex of things the eternal, infinite, indefinable Substance, from which all definite substances originated and to which they return. This hypothesis is completely identical with the statement on which the whole of Sankhya is based, that from Prakriti the entire material side of the universe develops. And the famous saying: "navm pei" expresses the inherent Sankhya view that all things are eternally changing under the continuous influence of the three "gunas". Empedocles, for his part, taught about the transmigration of souls and evolution, in which, on the one hand, he coincided with the Sankhya philosophy, but his theory that nothing can have existence that did not previously exist corresponds even closer to the Sankhya teachings.
Anaxagoras and Democritus adhere in their teachings just as closely to Hindu religious thought, especially Democritus’s view of nature and the role of the Gods. The same can be said about Epicurus, having become acquainted with some interesting details of his teaching. But the closest and most frequent agreement with Hindu teachings and arguments is found in Pythagoras, which is explained by the fact that Pythagoras visited India and studied Hindu philosophy, as legend claims.
In later centuries we find that some of the Brahmanical (Sankhya philosophy) and Buddhist ideas played a prominent role in the thought of the Gnostics. The following extract from Lassen, quoted by Garbe on page 97, proves this with complete certainty:
Buddhism in general makes a clear distinction between Spirit and Light and does not look upon the latter as something immaterial; Buddhism's point of view on Light is closely related to the view of the Gnostics. According to this view, Light is the manifestation of Spirit in matter; the mind, clothed in Light, comes into contact with matter, in which the Light can decrease, and in the end become completely darkened; in the latter case, the Mind may even fall into complete unconsciousness. It is affirmed about the highest Reason that He is neither Light nor Non-Light, neither Darkness nor Non-Darkness, since all these expressions indicate the relationship of Mind to Light, which in the beginning did not exist at all; only later did Light begin to clothe Reason and become a mediator between It and matter. It follows that the Buddhist view ascribes to the highest Mind the power to produce Light from itself, and in this respect it again agrees with the teachings of the Gnostics.
Garbe points out that the agreement on this issue between the Gnostics and the Sankhyas is much closer than between the former and Buddhism, for while the mentioned view of the relationship between Light and Spirit belongs to the later period of Buddhism and is not at all characteristic of Buddhism as such, the Sankhyas teaches clearly and accurately that the Spirit is Light. Even later, the influence of Sankhya thought was clearly reflected in the teachings of the Neoplatonists; although the doctrine of the Logos or Word does not proceed directly from the Sankhya school, yet it points in all its details to its origin in ancient India, where the idea of Vach, the Divine Word, plays such a prominent part in the system of Brahmanism.
Coming to the Christian religion, contemporaneous with the systems of the Gnostics and Neoplatonists, one can easily trace most of the same basic teachings. The Triple Logos appears in Christianity under the guise of the Trinity; The first Logos, the source of all Being, is God the Father; dual in nature, the Second Logos is the Son, the God-Man; The third, Creative Mind is the Holy Spirit, whose influence on the waters of chaos brought the visible worlds to life. Then we have the seven Spirits of God and the heavenly Host of Angels and Archangels. There is little indication of the One Being and First Cause from which everything proceeds and to which everything returns; but the learned fathers of the Catholic Church constantly mention the incomprehensible God, not subject to definition, infinite, and therefore One and Indivisible. Man is created in the “image of God” and, therefore, is threefold in nature: Spirit, Soul and Body; it represents the “dwelling place of God,” the “Temple of God,” the “Temple of the Holy Spirit,” definitions that exactly repeat Hindu teachings. The doctrine of reincarnation in the New Testament is, as it were, an accepted fact; Thus, Jesus, speaking of John the Baptist, declares that he is Elijah, “who must come”5; He refers to the words of Malachi: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet” (Malachi, 4, 5). And further, when asked by the disciples regarding the coming of Elijah before the Messiah, He answers: “I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him...”. And in another place, the disciples of Christ recognize reincarnation as an established fact when they ask: is the blindness of a man born blind a punishment for his own sins? Christ's answer does not deny the possibility of committing sins before birth; it only indicates that in this particular case, blindness is not caused by the sins of the person born blind. The remarkable words in the Revelation of John (III, 12): “Whoever overcomes I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he will no longer go out” are an indication of the possibility of avoiding reincarnation. From the writings of the Fathers of Christ's Church one could cite many indications of the widespread belief in reincarnation. To this it is objected that in these writings only the pre-existence of the Soul is mentioned, but this objection seems to us invalid.
The unity in the field of world ethics is no less striking than the unity of ideas about the universe and the identity of the experiences of all those who were liberated from the shackles of the body into the freedom of the higher worlds. This fact clearly proves that the original teaching, religious and ethical, was in the hands of certain Guardians who stood at the head of entire schools where students studied their doctrines. The identity of these schools and their disciplines becomes clear when we study their moral teachings and the demands made on their students, as well as the states of consciousness and spirit to which they were raised. The Tao Te Ching makes the following divisions into different types of scholars:
Scientists of the highest class, when they hear about the Tao, seriously put their knowledge into practice. Middle class scholars, when they hear about It, sometimes they keep It, and sometimes they lose It again. Scholars of the lowest class, when they hear of Him, only laugh loudly at Him (The Sacred Books of the East, XXXIX, op. Cit. XLI, 1).
In the same book we read:
The sage puts his own personality last, and yet it comes first; he treats his personality as if it were alien to him, and yet his personality is preserved. Is it not because his goals are realized because he has no personal or private goals? (VII, 2). He is free from self-exposure and therefore he shines; from self-affirmation, and therefore it is distinguished; from self-praise, and therefore his merits are recognized; from self-satisfaction, and therefore he enjoys superiority. And because he is so free from all competition, no one in the world is able to compete with him (XXII, 2). There is no greater guilt than allowing ambition; there is no greater disaster than dissatisfaction with one's lot; there is no greater mistake than the desire to win (XLVI, 2). To those who are kind to me, I am kind, and to those who are not kind (to me), I am also kind; and so everyone will become good. With those who are sincere (with me), I am also sincere, and with those who are insincere (with me), I am also sincere, and so (all) will become sincere (XLIX, 1). One who possesses the attributes (Tao) in abundance is like a child. Poisonous insects will not sting him, wild animals will not rush at him, birds of prey will not attack him (LV, 1). I have three precious things that I value highly and which I carefully guard. First: meekness; second: frugality; third: reluctance to dominate... Meekness is confident that it will win even on the battlefield and will firmly stand in its position. Heaven will save its owner, protecting him with his (own) meekness (LXVII, 2, 4).
The Hindus had selected, high-spirited scholars who received special instructions, and to them the Gurus transmitted secret teachings, while the general rules of moral life were derived from the Laws of Manu, from the Upanishads, from the Mahabharata and many other scriptures:
Let his speech be truthful, let it be pleasant, and let him not utter an unpleasant truth, and let him not utter a pleasant lie: this is the eternal law (Manu, IV, 198). Without bringing suffering to any creature, may he collect spiritual virtues (GU, 238). For that twice-born man, through whom not even the slightest harm is done to any of the created beings, there will be no danger from any (side) after he is freed from his body (VI, 40). May he endure cruel words patiently, may he not offend anyone, and may he not become anyone’s enemy in the name of this mortal body. Let him not show anger before an angry person, and may he bless him when they curse him (VI, 47, 48). Freed from passion, fear and anger, thinking about Me, resorting to Me, purified in the fire of wisdom, many penetrated into My Being (Bhagavad Gita, IV, 10). Supreme joy awaits that Yogi whose thought (Manas) is calmed, whose passions have subsided, who is sinless and of the same nature as Brahman (VI, 27). One who bears no ill feeling towards any being, friendly and compassionate, without attachment or selfishness, balanced in joys and sorrows, always forgiving, always contented, always harmonious, whose self is always reserved, mind (Manas) and spirit (Buddhi) whom are dedicated to Me, he who worships Me is dear to Me (XII, 13, 14).
If we turn to the Buddha, we find Him surrounded by Arhats, to whom He addressed His secret teachings. On the other hand, in His national teachings the following instructions are found: By seriousness, virtue and purity, a wise man makes himself an island that cannot be submerged by any flood (Udanavarga, IV, 5). A wise man in this world holds tightly to faith and wisdom, they are his greatest treasures, he rejects all other riches (X, 9). He who has a bad feeling towards those who show bad feelings can never become pure, but the one who never feels a bad feeling pacifies those who hate; hatred brings disaster to humanity, so the wise do not know hatred (XIII, 12). Conquer anger with absence of anger, conquer evil with good; overcome stinginess with generosity, overcome unrighteousness with righteousness (XX, 18).
The religion of Zoroaster teaches to give praise to Ahuramazda and then:
Everything that is beautiful, everything that is pure, everything that is immortal and brilliant, everything is good. We honor the good Spirit, we honor the good Kingdom, and the good Law and good Wisdom (lasna, XXXVII). May there be contentment, blessing, integrity and pure wisdom in this dwelling (lasna, LIX). Cleanliness is the greatest good. Happiness, happiness be with him: with the most pure in purity (Ashemvohu). All good thoughts, words and deeds are done with knowledge. All evil thoughts, words and deeds are not done with knowledge (Mispa Kumata. Selected passages from Avesta in Ancient-Iranian and Zoroastrian Morals, Dhunjibhoy Jamsetji Medhord).
The Jews had their own "schools of the prophets" and their secret teaching of the Kabbalah, and in the promulgated Scriptures we find the following recognized moral teachings:
Who will ascend to the mountain of the Lord, or who will stand in His holy place? The one whose hands are innocent and whose heart is pure. Who did not swear with his soul in vain and did not swear falsely to his neighbor (Psalm XXIII, 3, 4). O man! It is told to you what is good and what the Lord requires of you: to act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly and wisely with your God (Micah, VI, 8). Truthful lips endure forever, but a lying tongue lasts only for a moment (Proverbs, xii, 19). This is the fast that I have chosen: loose the chains of unrighteousness, untie the bonds of the yoke, and set the oppressed free and break every yoke; divide your bread to the hungry and
Bring the wandering poor into your home; when you see a naked person, clothe him and do not hide from your half-blood (Isaiah, LVIII, b, 7).
And Christ gave secret teachings to His disciples (Matthew, XIII, 10-17) and commanded them:
Do not give holy things to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot and turn and tear you to pieces (Matt. vii. 6).
As an example of national teachings we have the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount and the following instructions:
Download a book:

To live well, you need to think well, and Divine Wisdom - shall we call it by its ancient Sanskrit name

brahma-vidya

or a more modern Greek name

theosophy

- is precisely such a broad worldview that is capable of satisfying the mind as a philosophy and, at the same time, giving the world a comprehensive religion and ethics. It was once said about the Christian scriptures that they contain places so accessible to everyone that a child could wade, and places so deep that only a giant could swim across them.

I. Physical sphere

In our introduction we recognized as the source from which the universe proceeds the manifested divine Essence called the Logos or Word. This name, taken from Greek philosophy, perfectly expresses the ancient idea: the Word, heard from Silence, the Voice, the Sound, through which the worlds are called into being. We will begin our study by tracing the development of spirit-matter, so that we can understand more clearly the nature of the material with which we will deal in the physical sphere. For the possibility of evolution is rooted in internal forces, which are hidden in the spirit-matter of the physical world, as if wrapped in it. The whole process is nothing more than the deployment of these forces, the impulse to which comes from within, while from without assistance is given by intelligent entities whose role is to accelerate or retard evolution, but not to overstep the limits of the qualities inherent in a given material. Some idea of these first stages of cosmic manifestation is necessary for the understanding of evolution, although any attempt to go into detail would lead us far beyond the limits of our elementary sketch. Therefore, you will have to be content with the most general instructions.

Proceeding from the depths of the one great Being, from the Primary Source, which exceeds all human understanding, the Logos sets boundaries for Himself, voluntarily outlines the area of His own existence, being the manifested God. By the act of limiting the sphere of His activity He sketches the outer outline of His creation.

Within this boundary, the manifested world is born, develops and dies. Matter, which forms the objective world, is an emanation of the Logos, its power and energy are the currents of His Life; He abides in every atom, penetrating everything, containing and developing everything, He is the Source and End of the Universe, its cause and its goal, its center and circumference. The universe is built on Him as on a solid foundation; she breathes His life in the space outlined by Him; He is in everything, and Everything is in Him. This is how the Guardians of Ancient Wisdom teach us about the beginning of the manifested worlds.

From the same source we learn about the self-revelation of the Logos in three Hypostases; The First Logos is the Root of Being; from Him comes the Second, revealing both sides of existence, the primary duality that forms both poles of nature, within which the entire fabric of the universe is created, Life and Form, Spirit and Matter, positive and negative, active and passive, Father and Mother of the worlds. Then - the Third Logos, the universal Reason, in which everything already exists in ideas. He is the source of everything that exists, the spring of formative energies, the treasury that stores in itself all the prototypes of forms that, during the course of world evolution, must appear and be developed in the lower types of mothers. These prototypes are the fruits of previous worlds, and they also serve as seed for the present world.

All spiritual and material phenomena of the manifested world have a certain magnitude and transitory duration, but the crusts of Spirit and Matter are eternal. Primordial undifferentiated virgin Matter

Excerpts from the book by Annie Besant
"Ancient Wisdom"

An excellent description of Life, those of its plans that are hidden from a person in everyday life. The description is accessible, comprehensive, and creates structure and general understanding.

Jing-Jiang-Jing was transferred from the Toltecs to China when the Turanians separated from the Toltecs

The Great Tao has no corporeal form, but it produces and nourishes Heaven and Earth. The Great Tao has no passions, but it makes the sun and moon revolve. The Great Tao has no name, but it causes growth and preserves all things (I, 1). What is this?

about Tao, the structure of the World, Taoism

Chuang Tzu (Chwang-ze, in the 4th century BC), in his presentation of ancient teachings, refers to spiritual intelligent Beings descending from Tao:

Buddhism, in its northern form, completely coincides with the most ancient beliefs of Brahmanism, but in its southern form it has lost the idea of the Trinitarian Logos, as well as the idea of the One Being from which the Trinity emanates

Traces of the belief in reincarnation are found alike in both Jewish and Christian exoteric Scriptures

Let's turn to Egypt, we will find there in the most hoary antiquity the famous Trinity: Ra-Osiris-Isis

J. Mead gives abundant evidence and proves that reincarnation was taught by Plato, Empedocles, Pythagoras and others. Only by living a righteous life can people escape the wheel of birth

To those who are kind to me, I am kind, and to those who are not kind (to me), I am also kind; and so 1000 everyone will become kind. With those who are sincere (with me), I am also sincere, and with those who are insincere (with me), I am also sincere, and so (all) will become sincere (XLIX, 1). Tao Te Ching

useful rules of life from the Tao Te Ching

in the Manavadharmashastra, in the great Hindu Code...
Adultery is very severely condemned (Jambl., ibid.). In addition, the husband is prescribed the most meek treatment of his wife, for did he not take her as a girlfriend “before the gods”? (Lascaulx: zur Geschichte der Ehe bei den Griechen in Mern. de. l "Acad de Baviere, VII, 107).
Marriage was not a physical union, but a spiritual connection. Therefore, the wife, in turn, must love her husband more than herself, and be devoted and obedient to him in everything

good detailed description spheres: physical, astral, etc.

In a dream, when consciousness leaves the physical body, which was its guide during wakefulness, the physical and etheric bodies remain together, but they function in the dream world to a certain extent independently of one another.
The impressions experienced in the waking state are reproduced automatically in sleep, and both brains - physical and etheric - are filled with incoherent, fragmentary pictures, and the vibrations of both collide and cause all sorts of bizarre combinations. In the same way, external vibrations affect both conductors;

When the time comes for a new incarnation, the etheric double is built before the physical body; the latter, in its uterine period, exactly copies it.

In the astral sphere, life is more active than in the physical, and the forms there are much more plastic

Just as air penetrates water, just as ether penetrates the hardest matter, so astral matter penetrates everything physical. The astral world is above us, below us, around us and inside us; we live and move in it, but it is imperceptible, invisible and inaudible

in the astral everything is visible through and through, the back of an object is the same as the front, the interior is the same as the exterior. Therefore, a certain amount of experience is necessary; you must first learn to see astral objects correctly

The duration of the form depends on the strength of the impulse to which it owes its origin; the clarity of its outline depends on the clarity of thought, and its color depends on the quality (spiritual, intellectual or passionate) of the thought that created it.

In people of the average type, “artificial elementals” created by feeling or desire are much stronger and more definite than those created by thought. Thus, an explosion of anger creates a clearly defined strong lightning of red color

the thought of mortal malice, being powerless to strike the one at whom it was directed, struck to death the one who sent it... Such facts have been verified; in the same way, good thoughts sent to an unworthy person return back in the form of a blessing to the one who sent them

since average people are much stronger in passive receptivity than in active creativity, they act almost as automatic reproducers of all thoughts that reach them, and thus contribute to the constant strengthening of the national atmosphere

An animal is unable to experience pleasure or pain unless its astral body is affected. A stone can be hit, but it will not feel pain, because it has physical and etheric molecules, but its astral body is not yet organized; the animal feels pain from a blow because it has astral centers of feeling

An important sign of the undeveloped state of the astral body is the fact that its activity is caused rather from without than from within. To move a stone, you must first push it; the plant turns, attracted by light and moisture; an animal becomes active when driven by hunger; an underdeveloped person must be forced in a similar way

If we consider a person from the point of view of his “beginnings”...
The fourth principle is kama, desire; it manifests itself through the astral body...
The third principle is prana, a part of cosmic life enclosed in the body to maintain the physical organism. The second principle is the etheric double, and the first is the dense physical body.

Kamaloka, literally translated, is the place or abode of desires...
These are deceased human beings who have lost their physical bodies and must go through certain purification processes

Death does not change anything in the moral and mental nature of a person, and the change of state caused by the transition from one world to another takes away his physical body, but leaves the person himself the same as he was on earth.

Solemn is that moment when a person stands face to face with his life and from the lips of his past hears a warning regarding his future. For a short moment he sees himself as he is, recognizes the true purpose of life and is convinced that the law is irresistible, just and good.

Some time after death, usually after thirty-six hours, a person leaves his etheric body, leaving it in turn as an insensitive corpse, which, remaining close to its dense double, shares its fate. If the physical body descends into the grave, the etheric double hovers above it, slowly disintegrating into its component parts.

if a body is burned, its etheric counterpart disintegrates very quickly due to the fact that it loses its physical center of gravity, and this is one of the many reasons why burning corpses should be preferred to burial

The post-mortem experiences of people who are suddenly snatched from the physical environment, due to an accident, suicide, violent death or other kind of sudden death, differ from the experiences of those who die due to a decline in vital energy from illness or old age.

A person who committed murder and was executed for it,<<98>> in purgatory he experiences again and again the scenes of the murder committed and the further horror of his arrest and execution. The suicide will automatically repeat the feelings of despair and fear that preceded his suicide, and he will experience his dying struggle with terrible persistence

Just as the souls of the dead can be delayed in their forward movement by the calls of foolish friends, in the same way they can be helped by wise and well-directed efforts.
That is why all religions that have preserved even the slightest traces of the occult knowledge of their founders use “prayers for the dead.”

The English word "man" comes from the Sanskrit root "m 1000 an", which in turn is the root of the Sanskrit verb meaning to think, so that "man" literally means thinker, and the name carries with it the most characteristic feature human - rationality. In English, the word mind expresses at the same time the rational consciousness as such and the actions caused in the physical brain by the vibrations of this consciousness.

Life in the mental sphere is more active than in the astral sphere, and its forms are more plastic.

The true barriers between souls are differences in evolution; a less developed soul can know about a more developed one only to the extent that it is capable of responding to the vibrations of the latter; moreover, the limitation can only be felt by the higher soul, since the lower one has an answer to everything that can contain

firmly remember the fact that ascending the stages of evolution does not mean moving from place to place, but an increasingly refined ability to perceive impressions

The impressions perceived by the mental body are more permanent than the astral impressions, and in addition, they are capable of being consciously reproduced by it.

While the purpose of earthly life is to accumulate experiences, the purpose of the intermediate life between death and a new birth is to transform these experiences into individual properties

It is necessary to achieve harmonious and holistic overall development, and this requires calm introspection and clearly set goals for self-development

In a spiritually developed person, all the coarser connections have already been removed from this body, so that sensory objects do not find either in it or in the astral body closely connected with it corresponding materials capable of sympathetically vibrating in response to their vibrations

All that education can do is to provide such incentives as could promote the growth of existing useful properties, and on the other hand, the eradication of those properties that are undesirable. The development of innate qualities, and not cluttering the mind with a mass of facts - this is the goal of true education

Human evolution is the evolution of the Thinker; he puts on his bodies in the lower mental, astral and physical spheres; wears them out in the continuation of earthly, astral and lower mental life, discards them sequentially at each stage of the life cycle, moving from one world to another, but all the time retains within himself the fruits that he collected with the help of these bodies in each of the three worlds.

To directly harm the "abiding body" requires evil of a highly intelligent and refined kind, that "spiritual evil" which is mentioned in various Scriptures of the world's religions. This happens, fortunately, very rarely, as rarely as spiritual goodness, and occurs only among highly developed souls

The length of time spent in Devachan depends on the amount of materials that the soul brings with it from its earthly life.

In ancient times, when people's hearts were more directed towards heaven and they were more often attracted to heavenly bliss, the time that passed in Devachan was much longer and sometimes lasted many thousands of years; at the present time, when the attention of people is so entirely concentrated on earth and their thoughts are so rarely directed to the higher life, the period of Devachan is comparatively much shorter

Colorless earthly life, sleepy and narrow in mental and moral terms, produces a correspondingly weak, sleepy and narrow life in Devachan, where only the mental and moral are preserved.

When it comes to a true connection between two souls, it is difficult even to express how much closer, closer, gentler communication there is than everything that we know here, for, as we have already seen, there are no barriers between one soul and another, and in In full correlation with the significance of mental life on earth there will be also the significance of mental communication there

we cannot enter into relations with those whom we knew on earth if our connection with them was exclusively of a physical and astral nature, or if there was internal discord between them and us. That is why not a single enemy can penetrate our sky, because there people are united only by a sympathetic consonance of minds and hearts

division in time and space does not exist there, there is only a lack of sympathy, a lack of consonance between minds and hearts. In heaven we are constantly with those we have loved and honored in life.

the facts of past trials and experiences are brought into the mental faculties; thus, if a person has studied a subject deeply, the consequence of this study will be the emergence of a special ability

life in Devachan is not at all a blissful sleep in the land of flowers and not aimless idleness; it is a country in which the mind and heart develop, free from gross matter and from petty concerns,

For every Thinker, before returning to earth again, a moment of clairvoyance comes. For one moment he sees his whole past and the causes created in that past which will act in his future, and the general outlines of his immediate incarnation unfold before him without veil.

death is only a change that frees the soul from the heaviest of all the chains that bind it; death is only birth into a wider life, return after brief exile to the earth - to the true abode of the soul, the transition from prison to the freedom of the high air.
Death is the greatest of earthly illusions: there is no death, there is only a change in the conditions of life.
Life is continuous; unborn, eternal, constant, it does not perish with the destruction of the bodies that clothe it

When the process of assimilation ends here too, the mental body disintegrates and its energies - in turn - pass in the form of hidden forces inside the Thinker, and then he transfers his life completely to the world of arupa, to his innate abode. From here, after his experiences in the higher three worlds have turned into abilities and powers, he again begins his journey and goes through a new cycle of life

man is a rational, self-conscious entity, a Thinker, clothed in bodies belonging to the lower mental, astral and physical spheres. Now we come to the study of the Spirit, which is his innermost Self, the source from whence he came

The closest analogy to this state on earth is the relationship between two individuals, united by a strong and seeing love, which makes them feel, think, act and live as one person, recognizing no barriers, no differences, no “mine”, no “yours” and without allowing separation.
A faint echo from this sphere reaching the earth makes people seek happiness in union with the object of their desire, whatever this object may be.

the human aura consists of prominent parts of the etheric double, the astral and mental bodies, the “absent body” (corps causal)

about reincarnation

heredity plays the lesser a role, the higher the development of a given individual; that mental and moral qualities are not transmitted from parents to offspring and that the higher the qualities, the more striking this fact becomes. The child of a genius is often born stupid, and ordinary parents give birth to a genius.

the constantly repeated experiences accumulated in the group soul are instincts, "hereditary properties" in new representatives of the same species. Due to the fact that countless birds have fallen prey to the hawk, barely hatched chickens experience fear when their hereditary enemy approaches

Domestic animals of the highest type, such as elephants, horses, cats, dogs, already show greater individuality; for example, two dogs will act differently under the same circumstances. The monadic group soul incarnates into fewer and fewer forms as it approaches complete individuation.

The Human Monad, as we have already seen, is threefold in nature, and its three aspects we have called: Spirit, spiritual Soul and human Soul - Atma, Buddhi, Manas

In ancient times they were embodied in the dominant castes that ruled the masses of less developed people. And thus arose in our world those enormous differences in mental and moral abilities which separate the most developed races from the less developed and which, even within the same race, separate the philosopher-thinker from the half-animal type of the most undeveloped representatives of the same people.

Good can be called everything that corresponds to the divine Will, that helps the progress of the soul, that leads to the strengthening of the higher nature of man and to the education and conquest of his lower nature. Evil will be everything that slows down development, that keeps the soul at a lower level and, when all the necessary lessons have already been learned, everything that leads to the predominance of the lower nature over the higher and that develops the beast in man, instead of developing in him God.

the role that the “monadic group soul” played at earlier stages of evolution is now played for man by his “absent body” (corps causal), and only thanks to this indestructible principle is the evolution of man possible

When race, nation, nationality and family have been determined, the lords of karma provide what may be called a model of the physical body, adapted to express the quality of the given man and to manifest the consequences of all that he has sown in the past. A new etheric double, an exact copy of this model, is introduced into the mother's womb through the medium of an elemental animated by the thought of the "lords of karma." The dense physical body is introduced, molecule by molecule, into the etheric double, following exactly its outline, and here physical heredity has a decisive influence, for it supplies all the necessary materials. Moreover, the thoughts and passions of the surrounding people, especially the ever-present father and mother, influence the work of the building elemental.

At the beginning of human evolution, desire is the complete master and pushes man here and there; in the middle of his evolution, desire and will are in constant conflict, and victory is now on the side of desire, now on the side of the will; at the end of its evolution, desire dies and the will reigns unhindered and unconditionally.

While the matter concerns actions that were repeated many, many times, the consequences of which have already become clear either for the mind or for the Thinker himself, conscience speaks quickly and firmly. But if new problems arise regarding which there is no experience yet, the voice of conscience becomes uncertain

the need to nourish and maintain affections and love, and not to kill them, as is recommended by the lower kind of occultism. No matter how unclean and crude attachments may be, they still represent chances for moral evolution, from which a cold and voluntarily secluded person closes himself forever

degree of discernment and discretion regarding the food materials from which the brain is built. The consumption of rough food, such as meat and blood of animals and alcohol, should be abandoned so that pure food can build a pure body.

The astral body is the second vehicle of consciousness, which must be awakened and subjected to conscious development

the conditions for the physical vehicle to perceive the vibrations of the higher consciousness are as follows: it must be purified of gross constituents through pure food and pure life; all passions must be conquered, and a person must develop a balanced character capable of withstanding the adversities of life; he should acquire the habit of calm reflection (meditation) on sublime objects, turning the mind away from sensory objects and concentrating it on the highest. All types of haste should be combated, especially the restless, easily excitable, chaotic haste of the brain, which forces it to continuously work and move from subject to subject; needs to be developed true love to higher order phenomena

We have around, at the same time as infant souls, highly developed souls, born with noble mental and moral qualities. Continuing the same reasoning, we must assume that they achieved their development in other worlds before being born on earth

The comparatively insignificant difference between the physical bodies of men, who all outwardly represent the same human type, presents a striking contrast with the enormous difference between the mental and moral qualities of the savage and the most developed representative of modern civilized humanity.

Family similarities are usually explained by the law of heredity, but the sharp differences in mental and moral inclinations that constantly occur within a family remain unexplained. The doctrine of reincarnation explains the similarity by the fact that the incarnating soul is sent to such a family that provides it, through physical heredity, with a body suitable for the expression of its characteristics; it explains the dissimilarities by the fact that mental and moral qualities belong to the individual itself, and it appears in this family thanks to connections that it established in the past with one of the family members

a dying person - according to accurate observations - can speak a language that he heard only in early childhood and did not remember at all during the rest of his life

Just as a savage, unfamiliar with the laws of the physical universe, considers physical phenomena to be causeless, and the results of phenomena known to him as miracles, so people unfamiliar with moral and spiritual laws do not see from what causes life events proceed, but consider the result of spiritual laws unknown to them good or bad "fate".

distinguish between ripened karma, ready to manifest itself as an inevitable event in real life; between the karma of character, manifested in inclinations, which are nothing more than an accumulated store of experience, capable of being changed in the present incarnation by the same force (Ego) that in the past created it; and finally, karma, operating in the present and creating the conditions of future existence and future character.

mental images created in one life appear in the next incarnation in the form of mental abilities. That is why it is said in the Upanishads: “Man is a creature of reflection: what he reflects on in this life, that is what he becomes in the next.”

A person’s actions are the consequences of his previous thoughts and desires, and the karma that they represent is extinguished for the most part already during their commission.

the favorable or unfavorable conditions of the physical environment in which we are born depend on the influence of our actions on the prosperity or unhappiness of the people around us in our previous life

the motive is much more important than the act itself, and a wrong action committed with a good motive is more productive for a person in the sense of good than the most successful action, which is based on a bad motive

Three Kinds of Karma

about the law of sacrifice

From here arose all sacrifices to the “forces of nature,” as science calls them, to the intelligent spirits that control the physical structure of the universe, as all ancient religions taught.

spiritual properties necessary for admitting a student to the Path itself...
must gain power over his thoughts, the creations of a restless mind
must combine external self-control with internal self-control and rule over his speech and actions as strictly as over his thoughts
must develop in himself broad tolerance, calm acceptance of every character, every living form as it is, without demanding that it correspond to his personal taste
endurance must be developed, that patience that calmly endures everything, without harboring any malice, moving without hesitation towards the intended goal

At the beginning of the evolution of our planet, the moon was much closer to the earth and was larger than it is now. It retreated from us and greatly decreased in volume (the moon gave all its origins to the earth...). The new moon will appear during the seventh circle, and our moon will finally disintegrate into its component parts and disappear.