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Theosophy The Inner Wisdom

By C.A. Bartzokas

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Metaphysically, Theosophy Is The Accumulated Testimony And Wisdom Of The Ages

Theosophy is not knowledge of a “God,” 
. . . theosophia properly means not a knowledge of “God” but of gods, i.e., divine, that is superhuman knowledge. . . . [It] teaches a far stricter and more far-reaching Monism than does Secularism. . . . We therefore conceive of spirit and matter as one in essence and not as separate and distinct antitheses.

It is knowledge of gods, Celestial Knowledge.
Theosophy is divine knowledge, and knowledge is truth; every true fact, every sincere word are thus part and parcel of Theosophy.2 

A shoreless ocean of Everlasting Truth, Love, and Impartiality,
Theosophy, if meaning anything, means truth; and truth has to deal indiscriminately and in the same spirit of impartiality with vessels of honour and of dishonour alike.3 . . . The [Theosophical] Society can be regarded as the embodiment of Theosophy only in its abstract motives; it can never presume to call itself its concrete vehicle so long as human imperfections and weaknesses are all represented in its body; . . . Theosophy is the shoreless ocean of universal truth, love, and wisdom, reflecting its radiance on the earth, while the Theosophical Society is only a visible bubble on that reflection Theosophy is divine nature, visible and invisible, and its Society human nature trying to ascend to its divine parent. Theosophy, finally, is the fixed eternal sun, and its Society the evanescent comet trying to settle in an orbit to become a planet, ever revolving within the attraction of the sun of truth. It was formed to assist in showing to men that such a thing as Theosophy exists, and to help them to ascend towards it by studying and assimilating its eternal verities.4 . . . it has existed eternally throughout the endless cycles upon cycles of the Past, so it will ever exist throughout the infinitudes of the Future, because Theosophy is synonymous with EVERLASTING TRUTH. 

Theosophy is monistic through and through. By seeking the One Truth, 
 and through. By seeking the One Truth, . . . in all religions, in all science, in all experience, as in every system of thought. What aim can be nobler, more universal, more all-embracing?

It is allied with the ideals of every seeker of Truth.
With every man that is earnestly searching in his own way after a knowledge of the Divine Principle, of man’s relations to it, and nature’s manifestations of it, Theosophy is allied.2 . . . [It] advocates the development and the resources of MAN’S own nature as the grandest ideal we can strive for.3 

To fully define Theosophy, we must consider it under all its aspects.
By means of Its Golden Precepts, those who are intellectually and ethically fit, might gain insights of the inner world of being.
. . . The interior world has not been hidden from all by impenetrable darkness. By that higher intuition acquired by Theosophia — or God-knowledge, which carries the mind from the world of form into that of formless spirit, man has been sometimes enabled in every age and every country to perceive things in the interior or invisible world. Hence, the “Samadhi,” or Dyan Yog Samadhi, of the Hindu ascetics; the “Daïmonion-photi,” or spiritual illumination, of the Neo-Platonists; the “Sidereal confabulation of souls,” of the Rosicrucians or Fire-philosophers; and, even the ecstatic trance of mystics and of the modern mesmerists and spiritualists, are identical in nature, though various as to manifestation. The search after man’s diviner “self,” so often and so erroneously interpreted as individual communion with a personal God, was the object of every mystic, and belief in its possibility seems to have been coëval with the genesis of humanity — each people giving it another name. Thus Plato and Plotinus call “Noëtic work” that which the Yogis and the Srotriya term Vidya. “By reflection, self-knowledge and intellectual discipline, the soul can be raised to the vision of eternal truth, goodness, and beauty — that is, to the Vision of God — this is the epopteia,” said the Greeks. “To unite one’s soul to the Universal Soul,” says Porphyry, “requires but a perfectly pure mind. Through self-contemplation, perfect chastity, and purity of body, we may approach nearer to It, and receive, in that state, true knowledge and wonderful insight.” 4

There, mystics can see past, present, and future as in a mirror.
Real Theosophy is, for the mystics, that state which Apollonius of Tyana was made to describe thus: 
“I can see the present and the future as in a clear mirror. The sage need not wait for the vapours of the earth and the corruption of the air to foresee events. . . . The theoi, or gods, see the future; common men the present; sages that which is about to take place.”

Theosophy wakes up and frees the Heavenly Man from the clutches of Its outer shadow, 
[The doctrines of Theosophy] if seriously studied, call forth, by stimulating one’s reasoning powers and awakening the inner in the animal man, every hitherto dormant power for good in us, and also the perception of the true and the real, as opposed to the false and the unreal. Tearing off with no uncertain hand the thick veil of dead-letter with which every old religious scripture was cloaked, scientific Theosophy, learned in the cunning symbolism of the ages, reveals to the scoffer at old wisdom the origin of the world’s faiths and sciences. It opens new vistas beyond the old horizons of crystallized, motionless and despotic faiths; and turning blind belief into a reasoned knowledge founded on mathematical laws — the only exact science — it demonstrates to him under profounder and more philosophical aspects the existence of that which, repelled by the grossness of its dead-letter form, he had long since abandoned as a nursery tale. It gives a clear and well-defined object, an ideal to live for, to every sincere man or woman belonging to whatever station in Society and of whatever culture and degree of intellect. Practical Theosophy is not one Science, but embraces every science in life, moral and physical. It may, in short, be justly regarded as the universal “coach,” a tutor of world-wide knowledge and experience, and of an erudition which not only assists and guides his pupils toward a successful examination for every scientific or moral service in earthly life, but fits them for the lives to come, if those pupils will only study the universe and its mysteries within themselves, instead of studying them through the spectacles of orthodox science and religions.

So that He can live for others, here on Earth, unconstrained by his earthly jailer,
[The objectives of Theosophy] are several; but the most important of all are those which are likely to lead to the relief of human suffering under any or every form, moral as well as physical. And we believe the former to be far more important than the latter. Theosophy has to inculcate ethics; 1 it has to purify the soul, if it would relieve the physical body, whose ailments, save cases of accidents, are all hereditary. It is not by studying Occultism for selfish ends, for the gratification of one’s personal ambition, pride, or vanity, that one can ever reach the true goal: that of helping suffering mankind. Nor is it by studying one single branch of the esoteric philosophy that a man becomes an Occultist, but by studying, if not mastering, them all.
While the heart is full of thoughts for a little group of selves, near and dear to us, how shall the rest of mankind fare in our souls?
What percentage of love and care will there remain to bestow on the “great orphan”? 
And how shall the “still small voice” make itself heard in a soul entirely occupied with its own privileged tenants? 
What room is there left for the needs of Humanity en bloc to impress themselves upon, or even receive a speedy response?
And yet, he who would profit by the wisdom of the universal mind, has to reach it through the whole of Humanity without distinction of race, complexion, religion or social status. It is altruism, 3 not ego-ism even in its most legal and noble conception, that can lead the unit to merge its little Self in the Universal Selves. It is to these needs and to this work that the true disciple of true Occultism has to devote himself, if he would obtain Theo-sophy, divine Wisdom and Knowledge. . . . [he] has to choose absolutely between the life of the world and the life of Occultism. It is useless and vain to endeavour to unite the two, for no one can serve two masters and satisfy both.4 

Forgetting himself in the midst of the many selves,
A true Theosophist ought “to deal justly and walk humbly.” . . . the one self has to forget itself for the many selves . . .

. . . in the words of a Philaletheian . . . 
“What every man needs first is to find himself, and then take an honest inventory of his subjective possessions, and, bad or bankrupt as it may be, it is not beyond redemption if we set about it in earnest.” But how many do? All are willing to work for their own development and progress; very few for those of others. To quote the same writer again: “Men have been deceived and deluded long enough; they must break their idols, put away their shams, and go to work for themselves — nay, there is one little word too much or too many, for he who works for himself had better not work at all; rather let him work himself for others, for all. For every flower of love and charity he plants in his neighbour’s garden, a loathsome weed will disappear from his own, and so this garden of the gods — Humanity — shall blossom as a rose. In all Bibles, all religions, this is plainly set forth — but designing men have at first misinterpreted and finally emasculated, materialised, besotted them. It does not require a new revelation. Let every man be a revelation unto himself. Let once man’s immortal spirit take possession of the temple of his body, drive out the moneychangers and every unclean thing, and his own divine humanity will redeem him, for when he is thus at one with himself he will know the ‘builder of the Temple.’ ”