Theosophy

A place to discuss casual topics amongst spiritual friends.
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Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Theosophy

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

Here is another translation - based on Irving Babbitt's:
To refrain from all evil, to achieve the good, to purify one’s own heart — this is the teaching of all Buddhas.
Theosophy has to inculcate ethics; it has to purify the soul.
From Key to Theosophy.
Good and evil have no fixed form. It's as easy to turn from doing bad to doing good as it is to flip over the hand from the back to the palm. It's simply up to us to do it. Master Hsuan Hua.
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Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Theosophy

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Symbolism of ancient Egyptian rite reveals karma underpinning this after death rite:

https://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/fo ... -heart.htm
Good and evil have no fixed form. It's as easy to turn from doing bad to doing good as it is to flip over the hand from the back to the palm. It's simply up to us to do it. Master Hsuan Hua.
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Kim OHara
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Re: Theosophy

Post by Kim OHara »

Nicholas Weeks wrote: Fri Jul 17, 2020 7:34 pm Symbolism of ancient Egyptian rite reveals karma underpinning this after death rite:

https://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/fo ... -heart.htm
It's probably more accurate to say that both the notion of kamma and the weighing of the heart are instances of a universal religious archetype which says that there is justice in the next world, if not in this, and evildoers will be rewarded accordingly.
Christian heaven and hell fulfill the same function.

:coffee:
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Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Theosophy

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Here is a paraphrase by Purucker of the famous Hindu verse from the Rig-Veda - the Gāyatrī:
That lofty inner soul of the god's sun, may it unite the thoughts of us, its offspring, and urge us into that union, the union of the lower with the superior, of the individual with the spirit of man, with divinity.
The transliteration of the Sanskrit is:
Tat savitur varenyam bhargo devasya dhimahi,
Dhiyo yo nah prachodayat
Good and evil have no fixed form. It's as easy to turn from doing bad to doing good as it is to flip over the hand from the back to the palm. It's simply up to us to do it. Master Hsuan Hua.
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Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Theosophy

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The latest magazine of Theosophy Downunder:

http://theosophydownunder.org/australia ... er2020.pdf
Good and evil have no fixed form. It's as easy to turn from doing bad to doing good as it is to flip over the hand from the back to the palm. It's simply up to us to do it. Master Hsuan Hua.
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Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Theosophy

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The function of Theosophists is to open mens hearts and understandings to charity, justice, and generosity, attributes which belong specifically to the human kingdom and are natural to man when he has developed the qualities of a human being. Theosophy teaches the animal-man to be a human-man; and when people have learned to think and feel as truly human beings should feel and think, they will act humanely, and works of charity, justice, and generosity will be done spontaneously by all.
Blavatsky
Good and evil have no fixed form. It's as easy to turn from doing bad to doing good as it is to flip over the hand from the back to the palm. It's simply up to us to do it. Master Hsuan Hua.
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Pabhankara
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Re: Theosophy

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Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Theosophy

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For the future we intend that at this hour the Mystic shall be at home, less metaphysical and scientific than is his wont, but more really himself. It is customary at this hour, before the lamps are brought in, to give way a little and dream, letting all the tender fancies day suppresses rise up in out minds. Wherever it is spent, whether in the dusky room or walking home through the blue evening, all things grow strangely softened and united; the magic of the old world reappears. The commonplace streets take on something of the grandeur and solemnity of starlit avenues of Egyptian temples the public squares in the mingled glow and gloom grow beautiful as the Indian grove where Sakuntala wandered with her maidens; the children chase each other through the dusky shrubberies, as they flee past they look at us with long remembered glances: lulled by the silence, we forget a little while the hard edges of the material and remember that we are spirits.
From the "The Hour of Twilight", George W. Russell - AE
Good and evil have no fixed form. It's as easy to turn from doing bad to doing good as it is to flip over the hand from the back to the palm. It's simply up to us to do it. Master Hsuan Hua.
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Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Theosophy

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This large online Glossary is updated regularly, it will answer many questions about Theosophy:

https://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/etgloss/etg-hp.htm
Good and evil have no fixed form. It's as easy to turn from doing bad to doing good as it is to flip over the hand from the back to the palm. It's simply up to us to do it. Master Hsuan Hua.
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Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Theosophy

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The Three Truths

There are three truths which are absolute, and which cannot be lost, but yet remain silent for lack of speech.

1. The soul of man is immortal, and its future is the future of a thing whose growth and splendour has no limit.
2. The principle which gives life dwells in us and without us, is undying and eternally beneficent, is not heard or seen, or smelt, but is perceived by the man who desires perception.
3. Each man is his own absolute lawgiver, the dispenser of glory or gloom to himself; the decreer of his life, his reward, his punishment.

These truths, which are as great as is life itself, are as simple as the simplest mind of man. Feed the hungry with them.
From The Idyll of the White Lotus.
Good and evil have no fixed form. It's as easy to turn from doing bad to doing good as it is to flip over the hand from the back to the palm. It's simply up to us to do it. Master Hsuan Hua.
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Kim OHara
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Re: Theosophy

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Nicholas Weeks wrote: Fri Apr 02, 2021 6:41 pm
The Three Truths

There are three truths which are absolute, and which cannot be lost, but yet remain silent for lack of speech.

1. The soul of man is immortal...
That's eternalism.
3. Each man is his own absolute lawgiver...
That's anarchism.

:juggling:
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Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Theosophy

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The Victorian era was also a time when social pressure to say, think & be "proper" was intense. Back then some fought against it, preferring freedom of thought and expression. One of brightest lights was Helena Blavatsky. A new collection of all her editorials from her Lucifer magazine are now available. Here the Introduction by the compiler of the book:

https://www.theosophyforward.com/articl ... -volume-ii
Good and evil have no fixed form. It's as easy to turn from doing bad to doing good as it is to flip over the hand from the back to the palm. It's simply up to us to do it. Master Hsuan Hua.
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cappuccino
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Re: Theosophy

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Kim OHara wrote: Thu Apr 15, 2021 11:05 am
Nicholas Weeks wrote: Fri Apr 02, 2021 6:41 pm
1. The soul of man is immortal...
That's eternalism.
the same person being reborn each life is eternalism


the same exact person!


the soul is another matter entirely
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Kim OHara
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Re: Theosophy

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:juggling:
That would seem to depend very much on how one conceptualises "person" and "soul".

Do we know enough about Balavatsky's thought to know whether what she meant was eternalism or not?

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Re: Theosophy

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Kim OHara wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 6:55 am That would seem to depend very much on how one conceptualises "person" and "soul".
our minds and bodies change, hence not the same person


eternalism would say… we are always the same
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