The Theosophical Message
One reason for divergent views has obviously been the personal beliefs and idiosyncracies of later writers, but probably more importantly there has been lack of appreciation of the nature of the message as originally given us by the Masters at the end of the last century through H.P, Blavatsky.
Many thought, and still think, that H.P.B.'s great work, The Secret Doctrine, propounded a doctrine according to Blavatsky. This is not the case. The content of The Secret Doctrine is drawn from numerous sources worldwide, of the remotest antiquity through prehistoric to historic, mediaeval and modern times. Various religious streams, philosophical ones and esoteric ones, from various mystery schools are made to merge into what might be regarded as the mainstream of Occultism or Esotericism. These were put together and formulated as The Secret Doctrine. This is a collation of Initiate-selected elements from all these sources. A very important aspect of the work should be borne in mind: it is not a gospel according to any one person. It is not, so to speak, a 'one man band', as are nearly all the later systems presented as statements of the traditional occult doctrine. They are, however, all based on the experience and faculties, more or less developed, of their authors, whereas The Secret Doctrine refers to the findings of thousands of generations of initiated seers whose agreed testimonies are now brought together and contained in the vast doctrine made available to the public in that book for the first time in plain language.
Whereas the objects of the Blavatsky Trust reflect those of the Theosophical Society (with the exception of the idea of the nucleus of the brotherhood of humanity), it now becomes apparent that it can perform a much more important role in the preservation and promulgation of the teachings in their original form.
The importance of this is not generally realized. It has two aspects: one that the teachings were given out by the initiated Masters of the Wisdom at a specific time and the other that the grand doctrine they gave out had until then never been made public in plain language before, at least not in one work.
It is important to realize that the formulation of the great doctrine did not occur until some ten years after the founding of the Theosophical Society. Whereas in Isis Unveiled aspects of the vast subject of Esotericism had been touched on, they had not been clearly enunciated or put into any order. In The Secret Doctrine, however, the grand scheme was slowly unfolded as a whole. The start of this formulation was the giving out of parts of the information in the Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in the years from 1880 to 1885, Sinnett then published his book Esoteric Buddhism which in effect was a competent condensation of the information he had received. It has a number of defects because this was the first attempt at such a formulation. The grand unfolding so to speak came in 1888 with the publication of The Secret Doctrine which, as indicated above, draws together into one mighty river various streams of esoteric knowledge from many sources and from all ages.
Nothing but a first hand study persisted in over a long time can give an idea of the implications of the Masters' message, It is not wholly in terms of mysticism but it embraces it; it is not wholly in terms of ‘magic', i.e. the western tradition based on the Kabala, but it includes all of significance in that teaching; nor can it be expressed in terms of modern science because of the esoteric nature of the teaching against the materiality of physical science. This is so however metaphysical the speculations of some scientists may be becoming, They have not allowed themselves as yet to speculate on inner worlds and the relationship of those worlds to the outer objective universe.
Not only is the Masters' teaching concerned with Esoteric Science, i.e. that of the inner worlds, but it treats of the science of consciousness, and this in turn is the science of life itself in its deepest aspect. Further, consciousness without vehicles to operate in or through is a mere abstraction. According to the Esoteric Science the physical vehicle with its brain is only the lowest of a number of such vehicles, but through it all the others have expression at objective level.
According to the esoteric tradition man's total nature reflects that of the Cosmos as a whole, and it is by reason of this fact that by suitably training his vehicles of consciousness, he can come to know the very nature and workings of the universe itself. In this sense Theosophy is the doctrine of truth. It is in no way a belief system.
