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The Hill of Discernment

By Alfred Trevor Barker

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Keysto a Cosmic Philosophy

You can gain enormous insight into the teachings of the New Testament from the keys that H. P. B. and the Masters have given to us. I dare to say this, that if anyone will have the patience to read only one or two of our Theosophical books, such as The Ocean of Theosophy and The Key to Theosophy if no more, and then re-read your New Testament, you will be amazed to see what you get out of it. Theosophy gives you keys, it gives you fundamental concepts of truth, philosophical principles, that you can apply to the understanding of any and every problem.

There is an aspect of this question of Christian teaching to which I would like to draw attention, and it is this: I have heard it stated that if we take the ethics taught in the New Testament, and live them, we shall then be Theosophists. True, because H. P. Blavatsky defined a Theosophist very simply as one in whom the higher self predominates over the lower, which means the man and woman of the world in whom the spirit is more active than the lower man. But, here is the point I want to suggest to you: that be you never so wise in the understanding of the ethics of the New Testament, you cannot get out of it what is not there; and you won't find there a cosmic philosophy, complete in all its parts, covering the whole range of life on this planet, its relation to the solar system, and man's relation to the planet on which he lives — it is not there. We find there the ethical principles which, if we live them rightly, will give us that preparation of life that will help us to understand the doctrines when they are presented to us. But if we expect the Christian New Testament to give us the complete philosophy that H. P. Blavatsky gave to the Western world we shall be disappointed.