The Theosophical Society,
Practical Theosophy
By
C Jinarajadasa
First Published 1918
Based on lectures delivered in
Contents
I
Introductory
II Theosophy in the Home
III
Theosophy in School and College
IV Theosophy in Business
V Theosophy in Science
VI
Theosophy in Art
VII Theosophy in the State
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
THE value of Theosophy as a philosophy of conduct lies in the
fact that
Theosophy approaches us every hour of the day and in every
occupation that is
ours. While it
contains universal truths relating to the profoundest problems of
existence, at the
same time it tells us luminous truths about the little things
of our daily
lives. Once a man has grasped Theosophical principles, even if only
intellectually, they will
never leave him. They are as inseparably woven into
the fabric of
all life as the truths of evolution are woven into the fabric of
Nature. A man may
refuse to live up to them, but he cannot separate himself from them; they dog
his footsteps in the home, in his business, in his amusements; they make a
running commentary on all that he sees and hears.
There are three fundamental Theosophical truths which transform a
man's attitude to life when he begins to apply them. They are
:
1. Man is
an immortal soul who grows through the ages into an ideal of
perfection.
2. The
growth of the soul is by learning to cooperate with God's Plan which is
Evolution.
3. Man
learns to co-operate with God's Plan by learning first how to help his fellow
men.
The first truth tells us that man is a soul and not the body;
that the body is
merely an
instrument used by the soul, and discarded, as at death, when no
longer fit for
the soul's purposes. It also tells us of Reincarnation or the
process of
repeated births on earth, by which method a soul grows by experiences life
after life, slowly growing thereby into wisdom and strength and beauty.
The second truth tells us that the purpose of life is not
contemplation but
action, and that
each action of a man's life should be so guided by
understanding that it
fits in harmoniously with the Divine Plan of Evolution.
The more a soul co-operates with the Divine Plan, the happier,
wiser and more
glorious he
becomes.
The third: truth tells us that each man is bound by invisible
bonds to all his
fellow men; that
they rise and fall with him and he with them; that only as he
helps the whole
of which he is a part, does he really help himself. Love of
one's fellow men
and altruism in the highest form are therefore the essentials
of growth.
These fundamental truths are applicable to every occasion of
life, and the
Theosophist is he who applies them. Let us see how they can be
applied in
various departments
of human activity.
CHAPTER II
THEOSOPHY IN THE HOME
WHAT is the family, in the light of these Theosophical truths ? It is a
meeting-place of souls
to help each other towards perfection, No individual in a
family comes
there by mere chance. The elders and the youngers,
the masters and the servants, the guests, even the domestic animals, are in a
family because
each is to help
and to be helped. There is no such thing as chance in the Divine
Plan; each individual in the family comes and goes, is a member
of it for a long
or a short
time, because he can co-operate to further the welfare of all the
other members of
the family. He has a definite role in the family, and his
growth as a soul
is by playing that role to the fullness of his capacity. The
home is a place
for growth, and the ideal home is where the conditions are such
as enable
each individual member of it to grow swiftest towards his perfection.
There are several aspects of life in the home, and each is
affected by the
principles of
Theosophy, What has Theosophy to say concerning the relation
]of parent and
child, husband and wife, master and servant, host and guest ?
First let us take the relation of parent and child. The child has
a dual nature,
first as a soul
and second as a body. It is only the body which the parents
provide; the soul
of the child lives his life independently, and takes charge of
the body
provided for him because he hopes to evolve through it. It is only as
regards the body of
the child that the parents are the elders; but the child, as
a soul, is
the equal of the parents, and sometimes is wiser, more capable, and
more evolved
than they.
Therefore the child does not belong to the parents; they are only
guardians of
his body, so
long as the soul cannot fully direct the body during its infancy
and youth. The
phrase "my child" gives no right over the destiny of the child;
it gives only
the privilege of helping in the evolution of a brother soul. As
the parents
evolve by learning to help their fellow men, one such is sent to
them as their
child.
During the years of infancy, the parent's duty is to help the
soul of the child
to take
control of his body so as to do his work. That soul comes with many
experiences of past lives;
he is preparing himself for a vast work in the
distant future. He
takes birth in a particular family because its environment is
both what he
deserves and that ]from which he can get the experiences he
needs for his
growth. The duty of the parents is to help the child to those
experiences.
This is to be done first by surrounding the child with all that
makes for a
healthy life; it
is the duty of parents to know the rules of hygiene and
sanitation, so that
the physical conditions for the child may be as perfect as
possible. Next the
parents must provide an emotional and mental atmosphere that helps the child.
The soul of the child is not perfect; he comes from his past
lives where he
has been both good and evil; tendencies of both are in him as he
takes his new
birth. But the parents can help the child's growth by recalling to
his memory in
his early years only the good and helpful experiences and not the
evil and
vicious. It is true that the soul must eradicate the evil in himself
only by his own
action; but others can make it easier for him, especially when
he begins a
new life as a child, by throwing their weight on the side of his
good rather
than of his evil.
Therefore the parents must understand the invisible power of thought
and
feeling, how a
thought of anger, whether expressed or not expressed, waters the
hidden seeds of
anger which the child has brought from his past lives, and how
equally thoughts
of love and affection starve out the germs of evil while they
feed the germs
of good. A soul ] with both good and evil in him can
start
his new
experiment with life as a good child rather than as a bad one, if the
parents will
foster in themselves their good thoughts and feelings rather than
the evil.
While the duty of parents is to surround children with all that
tends to
goodness and
beauty, the failure of a child to be good under those circumstances is not
necessarily due to the parents. The soul of the child may find the seeds of
evil in himself too strong for control; the parents
can but attempt to guide him, but if he will not be guided he must go his own
way. The soul will learn through his mistakes, and through the suffering
resulting to him and to others from them. If the parents do their duty, they
have done all the Divine Plan expects of them; they cannot make or unmake the
nature of a soul, for the soul himself must work out his salvation. A mistake
is not the calamity that it appears to be when we know that the soul has not
one life only within which to set right his error, but several lives. The
Divine Plan gives the soul as many opportunities as he needs, till he finally
grows into strength and virtue.
Therefore no parent need blame himself, if he has done his duty,
because his
child does not
respond to ideals of virtue. The opportunities that the child
refuses to take
will come to him again, though only after he has been taught by
pain to grasp
them. What the ]parents must always do under these
circumstances is not to
think of the soul by his failures, and so increase his
weaknesses, but to
think of the soul by his virtues, and so strengthen them.
In the training of children, one important question is how to
make a child do
the right
thing and not the wrong. Unfortunately, civilization hitherto has
believed that some
kind of corporal punishment is inevitable as a part of the
method. While
parents have the duty of training a child, they have no right
whatsoever to force
him ; the excuse that punishment is good for a child is not
really borne out
in the light of the fullest facts. It is true that in early
years the child
body is very largely an animal intelligence overshadowed by the
soul nature,
and that many of a child's activities have little or no direct
association with the
soul; it is not the soul that eats and drinks, is pettish
or obstinate,
or is made happy with toys, or laughs when tickled. This animal
side of the
child does indeed often require curbing; but any kind of outward
pressure by
corporal punishment, while it may achieve the intended result,
brings about also
a certain coarsening of the child's vehicles which makes them
more
obstructive to the spiritualising influences of the
Ego.
The higher nature of the child, represented by his latent
emotions and thoughts,
has in
childhood ]great sensitiveness; if proper care is taken, a fine
and happy
emotional nature and an open and intuitive mentality can result for
the child as
he grows up. Harsh treatment of any kind coarsens his finer
vehicles, however
much it may temporarily check the crudities of the physical;
and repeated
shocks of this kind finally coarsen and deaden that higher
sensitiveness which
should be prominent in all men and women as a normal
characteristic of human
beings. The man who is thankful that he was made to be
good by
punishment does not realize how much better he might have become, had a more
rational system of training been understood by those who had his young vehicles
in their charge.
When parents and educationists realize that all the experiences
of life have not
to be
condensed into one brief lifetime; that the soul has an eternity of growth
before him ; that
he has the right to make his own experiments in life, so long
as he does
not hinder the growth of others; that each individual alone is
responsible for the
good or evil that he may do; that others are responsible for
him only as
they are his brothers and fellow men ; then we shall have a saner
outlook upon this
matter of child welfare and training, and there will be little
difficulty in
arranging methods of child discipline which will curb the child's
animal nature in
ways that ]are not derogatory to his higher nature as a
soul.
When we come to the relation in the family as between husband and
wife,
Theosophy tells us that they are both equal in the
responsibilities and
privileges which they
have in life. What has brought them together in this
family
relationship is a series of duties and privileges which is called the Law
of Karma, or
the Law of Action and Reaction. They do not meet for the first time in their
age long existence, they have met many times before and have "made
Karma" between themselves; they have also " made
Karma " with certain other souls who may come to them as their children
and dependants. It is this karma, which they owe to each other and to those
that shall surround them in the home, that brings two
souls together as husband and wife.
Often this karma brings with it the blossoming of affections and
sympathies; in
such a case we
have the ideal marriage. But it may well happen that, after two
people have been
brought together, the karma between them produces phases of
unhappiness. In both
conditions, it is the Divine Purpose that they shall get to
know each other
in their Divine natures, and discover their common work, which
is indeed a
part of the great Divine work. For while souls can discover each
other through
love, yet if they will not through love, life forces them
to discover
through hate; for hate that repels in the beginning attracts in the
end. Men and
women discover these mysteries of life outside the marital
relationship; but
nevertheless that relationship has been planned as one mode of
discovery. No
relation gives such great opportunities for the discovery of
another's self and
also of one's own self as this; and the man or woman who uses these
opportunities, when karma gives them, thereby grows in spirituality and comes
nearer the discovery of the great Self of God and all humanity.
When this high spiritual purpose is recognized as underlying
family life, family
responsibilities and
privileges appear in a new light; the trivial duties of the
home have
shining through them the light of Eternity. The birth of children or
their loss, the
anxieties and cares of tending them and training them, the joys
and the
sorrows which they give, are all so many experiences leading to the
great Discovery.
The family is not a meeting-place of simple travellers
who meet
for a few
brief years, and then go their separate ways in eternity; it is far
more a theatre
or concert hall where a drama or a composition is being
rehearsed, so that
all the individuals may learn to perform their parts with
beauty and
dignity for the delight of man and of God.
Not dissimilar too is the relation in the home between master and
servant.
Usually where this relation exists, the servant is less evolved
than the master;
he therefore
appears in the family in order that he may be helped to grow by an
elder soul. We
may engage a servant, but his coming to us is not a matter of
chance; we may
pay him wages, but our " karmic link" does not cease with the
money which we
give him. The servant is the master’s brother soul; he is usually
the younger
brother, but the monetary contract between them should never be
allowed to make
less real the great fact they are brothers.
Servants come to us to be shown a higher ideal in life than they
would normally
be aware of,
were they not brought into association with their masters.
Neatness, method, conscientiousness, generosity, courtesy, fine behaviour and
culture are
examples of conduct which the master has to place before the
consciousness of his
younger brother, the servant; but while we present to him
our example,
we must not ask of him, since he is our younger brother, our
standard of
achievement. It is our duty as masters to be patient and
understanding while we
call out the best from our servants through a spirit of
willing
co-operation. Many a virtue can be learned as a servant which, in a
later life of
larger opportunities, will lead to great actions; and those of us
who are
1]masters, but who have not yet learned such virtues, will need
to return to
life as servants to learn them.
Who toiled a slave may come anew a prince,
For gentle worthiness and merit won ;
Who ruled a king may wander earth in rags,
For things done and undone.
The domestic animals who form a part of
the family are not such unimportant
members of it as
people usually imagine. The Divine Life that is in man is in
the animal
too; but it is at an earlier stage and therefore less evolved. But it
is to evolve
to a higher through contact with man. Man's duty to his domestic
animals is to soften
their savage nature and implant in them manlike attributes
of thought
and affection and devotion. Therefore, while the animal gives us its
strength in
service, we must use it purposely to train it towards humanity, for
the animal
will some day grow to man. If we bring out a dog's intelligence by
our training,
it should not be used to strengthen his animal attributes, as when
we train our
dogs to hunt. A domestic cat may be "a good mouser," but it is not
for that
reason that God has guided him into the family. If we train horses, it
certainly should not
be to develop speed for racing or hunting ; the service
they give us
should be rewarded by bringing out of them qualities that more
contribute to their
evolution towards humanity than speed. 1]The general
principle with
regard to our relation to our domestic animals is that they are
definitely sent to us
to have their animal attributes of savagery as far as
possible weaned out
of them and human attributes implanted in their stead, for
what is animal
today will some day be man, as man today will some day be a God ; and he serves
evolution best who helps the Divine Life to move swiftly on its upward way.
CHAPTER III
THEOSOPHY IN SCHOOL AND COLLEGE
THERE are just now in the educational world many attempts at
reforms;
all who have
the practical duty of teaching and helping in the building of the
character of
children are aware how unsatisfactory are the existing theories and
methods. The drift
of these various reforms is clearly evident when we approach
the problem of
education from the standpoint of Theosophy. The existing theories start with
the supposition that the child is an intelligence which began at
birth, and that,
when he comes to school, his mind is a tabula rasa;
necessarily,
therefore, the aim of education is to give the child a knowledge
which he does
not possess and to mould a character which is yet unformed.
These theories are still accepted as true, in spite of the fact
that every one who has had to teach boys and girls, and every parent who has
had to bring them up,
knows by
practical experience that children have definite characters, as well as
definite aptitudes,
from their earliest infancy.
From the Theosophical standpoint, the first fact that, has always
to be kept in
mind with
regard to a child is that he is an immortal soul, and that his
appearance as a boy
or girl is in order that the qualities latent in that soul
may unfold
themselves through experience. The second fact is that the visible
world is only
one part of a larger world in which the child lives, and that all
the time the
child is being affected for good or evil not only by what he sees
and hears, but
also by the invisible atmosphere of the thoughts and feelings of
others. As an
immortal soul, the child has already had many experiences of life,
and his
present appearance as a child is only one of many similar appearances in
past ages. He
has, therefore, known much about life, and has already gained a
certain amount of
experience of what to do and what not to do. This knowledge,
however, is
largely dormant, so far as the child's brain is concerned.
The true aim, therefore, of education is twofold: first, to call
out this latent
knowledge in the
child; he must be made quickly to rediscover such principles of conduct as, in
his past lives, he has tested and found were valid for him; and
that form of
education is the best which enables the soul, working through the
child's brain, to
come swiftest to a remembrance of his past successes and
failures. The
second aim in education is to bring the child 1 as quickly
as possible
to a synthetic view of life; for no man or woman begins to be
educated until he
or she sees life from some central standpoint. In the general
activities of life,
we are apt to miss the mark, because we permit divisions
between our mental
and emotional and moral worlds; and when we thus exist in
compartments, the
resultant of our energies is always less forceful than it
might be if we
lived as a whole. Therefore education must, from the beginning,
instill into the
child the sense of a whole in life and since he has already
come to some
degree of synthesis through his experiences in past lives, the
educationist should aim
at bringing the recollection of this synthesis swiftly,
and at
developing it to embrace a yet larger horizon.
This work of enabling a soul, through his child body, to come to
his old
synthesis, has to be
done in three stages, those of the Kindergarten, the
School, and the College; we shall now see what Theosophy has to
say concerning education in each of these stages.
The child is not merely the little physical body which we see; he
is also an
astral body of
emotions and a mental body of ideas. All the three vehicles,
mental, astral
and physical, make up the child; and all three are sensitive and
require training
and co-ordination. Each vehicle has a certain vitality of its
own, quite
apart from the commanding general 1vitality of the soul of
the child; and
each has a rudimentary consciousness with likes and dislikes
which are not
necessarily those of the soul of the child. These subconscious
streams of
consciousness are pronounced during child life, and they have to be
kept within
their proper bounds while the soul uses the vehicles which give rise
to them.
Sometimes some of these subconscious elements may be quite contrary to the
nature of the child; the. physical body of the child
may be extremely boisterous or lethargic, because of the physical heredity of
the parents, but this need not mean, necessarily, that the soul lacks either
serenity or
strength. Exactly
similarly, each child's astral and mind body have energies of
their own to
start with, quite apart from the energy of the soul of the child
who uses the
vehicles. Therefore, the principal aim in the Kindergarten stage of
education is to
enable the child to get control of his vehicles; the brain needs
to be
developed by muscular movements, the emotional nature by feelings, and the
mental by thoughts.
The work in the Kindergarten, as we all know, trains the child's
body in method
and order and
rhythm, and trains his brain centres to recognise the concepts of
colour, shape,
weight, temperature, and so on. The deftness of hand taught in
Kindergarten work reacts on the emotional and, 1mental nature of
the
child, and such
training is very necessary, so as to enable the soul to come
more swiftly to
his synthesis. But we have to recognise that the
child's
character is
influenced not only by the objects he handles and by the shapes he
sees, but also
by innumerably invisible influences; the lines and angles and
curves of the
room in which he works, the colour of walls, and the
shapes of the
physical objects
surrounding him in his Kindergarten room, all invisibly help or
hinder him; every
line in the objects around him, every shade of colour,
every
tone he hears
has its influence on his mental and emotional natures; we can help
children or hinder
them by the objects which surround them in their Kindergarten
life. Modern
Kindergarten methods have recognised the value of the
handling of
various objects by
the child; but they have yet to recognise that the
objects
themselves are
continually, though invisibly, handling the child, and that they
are moulding him in the right way or warping him in the wrong.
The influence of the teacher upon the child, when viewed theosophically, is far
more than
educationists now realise; for the child is
influenced not only by the
visible teacher
but also by that part of the teacher's nature which is
invisible. A sharp
word or a bright smile from a teacher has, we know, visible
effects; exactly
similar, but far more powerful, is 1the effect of the
thought of the
teacher. The true teacher must be equipped in educational methods not only
intellectually but also emotionally; and in the Kindergarten specially
is this essential, since the child's delicate astral and mental vehicles are
extremely sensitive
to the thoughts and feelings of the teacher. Without love
for children
and a keen interest in their ways no one has a right to be a
teacher; and this
general principle is most important in the Kindergarten, where
children are given
over to the teacher almost body and soul.
Many improvements have yet to be made in the Kindergarten, but
the general
principle underlying
them all is that, while the child's three vehicles are
plastic, it is the
duty of the teacher to bring to bear upon them not only the
visible but also
the invisible influences, so as to bring down into the child's
brain as quickly
as possible the fuller nature of the soul.
After the child gains a certain amount of control of his vehicles
in the
Kindergarten, in the next stage at school he has to gain the sense
of Law. His
emotions are
therefore now, to be more fully worked upon. Now the child is born with an
emotional nature which he has developed through many lives; the teacher has not
therefore an altogether plastic or inchoate emotional nature to work upon. He
can only modify it, eradicating any twists or warps which exist in it, and
strengthening what is beautiful. What has to be given to the child
— or usually, as a matter of fact,
reawakened in him — is a deep capacity for
feeling, with, at
the same time, a serenity while he feels, .
This can largely be achieved by working with the child's physical
body; Herein
lies the value
of gymnastics, especially all gymnastics, which have in them some
sense of rhythm.
Wherever a rhythm can be developed in physical action, as in
the dance or
in eurhythmies, there is a clear emotional reaction and the child's
invisible emotional
body is steadied and gains a sense of law and order; and
this reacts on
the mental nature so as to attune it to the thought of law. This
effect is
specially heightened where the rhythmic movements are performed by
many children
in common; it is as if while they all work together they become
units of an
invisible rhythmic movement, which imposes upon them a great law of beauty and
order in action.
The sense of law and beauty is also greatly developed by training
the child in
poetry and music;
this training does not mean that the child must be made to
write poetry or
to compose music — unless indeed he has a special aptitude for
either within him
— but that he shall be given both music and poetry as his
emotional food.
Every child from earliest years should know some poetry and some music suited
to his capacity; but we must take the greatest care that
the
word-phrases or musical phrases are really suitable. For just as physical
dirt may infect
the sensitive body of the child, so too can the emotional land
mental natures be
infected by harmful poetry and crude music. Nursery rhymes,
with their
usual jumble of thoughts and images which have little relation to
life, are in
this respect distinctly harmful; perhaps presently our poets will
give us great
poems for little children to take the place of the nursery rhymes
which are taught
them now. If we could, in our modern civilisation,
abolish the
ugly noises of
the streets, and the ugly pictures on hoardings, as well as the
use of phrases
in language distorted from their true meaning, we should not need
to complain
of unruly children; unruliness is a malady of the emotional nature,
but the germs
of it are not so much in the children as in the outer world which
surrounds them in
our modern civilizations.
The mental nature of the child has to be trained by making it
strictly true to
fact; and this
is exceedingly difficult in these days, because so many of the
words we use do
not signify what they are meant to signify. Words having
definite, accepted
meanings are often used for purposes of exaggeration or as
slang, and these
things confuse the sensitive mental nature of the child.
Therefore the greatest care has to be taken that children only
hear
words which are
true, that is, words which have some clear and precise relation
to the thing
signified. The mental nature of the child is extremely active and
difficult to hold along
definite lines; therefore clear descriptions of things
must be given
to him and also expected from him. This mental accuracy in his
education will
enable his dormant mentality to express itself more fully as the
years pass;
accuracy of thought and description is necessary for the highest of
reasons, which is
to bring down to the child's brain his consciousness as a soul
who has
already thought accurately about such experiences as have been his in
his past
lives.
Needless to say the child's mind has to be trained by stories.
The mind is one
of the finest
architectural implements that we have; the mind's nature is to
build. We must,
therefore, give it suitable material at the varying stages of
its growth,
and in early years show the mind what makes for beauty in building.
Here comes in the use of fairy stories, and especially of myths;
myths have in
them an
intrinsic beauty of structure, and the child's mind is trained to high
imaginative faculty by
teaching him the great romances of the visible and
invisible worlds.
A necessary element in education is to give the child, even in
his earliest
years, some
definite synthesis upon which to found his imagination; and for
this religion
is fundamentally necessary. A religion need not mean
definite dogmas of
a theological kind; what the child needs to start with is
some great
universal thought embodying in it a universal feeling. Every religion
has many such
suitable thoughts, even for a child's mind, and it is perfectly
possible to
surround children with a beautiful religious atmosphere. Each child
should be taught
morning and evening to recollect himself as a soul by some
simple prayer of
dedication ; one such, greatly in use among the children of
Theosophists, is this simple prayer of the "Golden Chain " :
I am a link in the Golden Chain of Love that
stretches around the world,
and must keep my
link bright and strong.
So I will try to be kind and gentle to every
living thing I meet,
and to protect and
help all who are weaker than myself.
And I will try to think pure and beautiful
thoughts, to speak pure and
beautiful words,