Bradford Theosophical Society

Bradford Theosophical Society (Promoting understanding and respect for spiritual lifestyles.) (Founded Feb. 1891) President: Cynthia Trasi. Click here: Trasi's home page. or to contact us. A Branch of The Theosophical Society in England 50 Gloucester Place, London W1U 8EA, Tel: 020 7935 9261 www.theosophical-society.org.uk

 The knowledge now known as Theosophy has existed from earliest times and it is said to embody the distilled wisdom of the great minds of the human race, whose findings have been called the Esoteric Philosophy or the Ancient Wisdom. This wisdom is, to quote, The Key to Theosophy, 'the cumulative testimony of an endless series of seers ... All that was not corroborated by unanimous and collective experience was rejected, while that only was recorded as established truth which, in various ages, under different climes, and through an untold series of incessant observations, was found to agree and receive constantly further corroboration'.

 These doctrines outline a vast scheme of both spiritual and physical evolution that explain man's composite nature, his essential place in the universe and his relation to it.

 First, Theosophy affirms that the universe is a single whole and that one life animates every part of it. All beings and all forms emerge from and have their root in one Universal Life - the First Cause of all cosmic creation.

 For manifestation, this First Cause, or Universal Consciousness, polarises, giving rise to 'pairs of opposites': spirit - matter; light - darkness; active - passive; male - female; positive - negative, and so on. The One, by emanation at various levels, becomes the many, giving rise to intelligent forces that carry out the One Will and build the kingdoms of nature. Keeping pace with the evolution of forms, the spirit, ad the involved life, expresses itself to the limit imposed by those forms, ever pressing towards greater complexity and sensitivity. Life and form are intimately connected throughout the whole process.

 In due time the life principle develops the germ of mind, reflecting a universal intelligence principle, and the animal brain is formed as an instrument through which it can function. Again after long ages a finer aspect of universal consciousness is able to affect the developing mind, giving self-awareness, self-direction and creative intelligence. This is found only in human beings and distinguishes them from the higher animals. Man is thus unique among the kingdoms in that his constitution spans the highest and the lowest in nature. The kingdoms below him lack insight and self-awareness; those above him are without dense physical bodies.

 Next, Law governs the universe. By operation of this Law everything acts and reacts according to its stage of evolution, governed by its innate intelligence. The one Intelligence operating in all things at all levels ensures the balance and harmony of the dynamic vital whole.

 A further teaching is that evolution proceeds in cycles, on a spiral principle. There are times of rapid growth, then of assimilation and rest; times of coming and going of every thing. Reincarnation is the method by which these cycles are expressed. Life with its ever unfolding faculties and growing intelligence uses various forms, e.g. a physical body, for a period of expansion of consciousness, then casts aside the worn-out instrument and withdraws into a subjective state of rest to digest its experiences. Then it again takes another set of 'bodies' suitable for its next stage of evolution and further growth, never retrogressing but always moving forward, however slowly.

 Man's immense potentialities unfold but slowly under the Law of Adjustment, called Karma, by which men weave their own destiny, reaping what they have sown, thus gradually learning by experience until finally they realise their responsibility to their fellows and to all the other kingdoms of nature. Then it is possible for us to be co-workers with the eternal Universal Intelligence and to become perfected human beings - Masters of the Wisdom they have been called who have thus achieved - to serve as 'beneficent forces in nature'.

 The way by which this is accomplished is variously called the Way of Holiness, the Narrow Way, the Path, and so on. It involves the deliberate training of body, emotions and mind, so that these are gradually able in increasing degree to reflect the spiritual, divine potential in every human being.

 These doctrines are concisely summed up in the Three Fundamental Propositions of The Secret Doctrine, H.P.Blavatsky's magnum opus. They are given in the Proem, the essential points being:

1. An Omnipresent, Eternal, Boundless and Immutable Principle on which all speculation is impossible, since it transcends the power of human conception. It is beyond the range and reach of thought.
2. The Eternity of the Universe in toto as a boundless plane; periodically 'the playground of numberless Universes incessantly manifesting and disappearing. The appearance and disappearance of Worlds is like a regular tidal ebb of flux and re-flux.
3. The fundamental identity of all Souls with the Universal Over-soul; and the obligatory pilgrimage for every Soul through the Cycle of Incarnation (or Necessity) in accord with cyclic and karmic law.