Selections from Theosophy’s Sacred Teachings in “The Key to Theosophy,” Part 2 of 2

“Theosophist: The WISDOM-RELIGION was ever one, and being the last word of possible human knowledge, was, therefore, carefully preserved. It preceded by long ages the Alexandrian Theosophists, reached the modern, and will survive every other religion and philosophy.”

“Theosophist: The best proof you can have of the fact is that every ancient religious, or rather philosophical, cult consisted of an esoteric or secret teaching, and an exoteric (outward public) worship. Furthermore, it is a well-known fact that the MYSTERIES of the ancients comprised with every nation the ‘greater’ (secret) and ‘lesser’ (public) MYSTERIES — e.g., in the celebrated solemnities called the Eleusinia, in Greece.”

“Not one of the ancient nations ever imparted through its priests its real philosophical secrets to the masses, but allotted to the latter only the husks. Northern Buddhism has its ‘greater’ and its ‘lesser’ vehicle, known as the Mahayana, the esoteric, and the Hinayana, the exoteric, Schools. Nor can you blame them for such secrecy; for surely you would not think of feeding your flock of sheep on learned dissertations on botany instead of on grass?”

“Ancient Theosophists claimed, and so do the modern, that the infinite cannot be known by the finite — i.e., sensed by the finite Self — but that the Divine essence could be communicated to the higher Spiritual Self in a state of ecstasy. This condition can hardly be attained, like hypnotism, by ‘physical and chemical means.’ Real ecstasy was defined by Plotinus as ‘the liberation of the mind from its finite consciousness, becoming one and identified with the infinite.’ This is the highest condition, says Prof. Wilder, but not one of permanent duration, and it is reached only by the very few. It is, indeed, identical with that state which is known in India as Samadhi. The latter is practiced by the Yogis, who facilitate it physically by the greatest abstinence in food and drink, and mentally by an incessant endeavor to purify and elevate the mind. Meditation is silent and unuttered prayer, or, as Plato expressed it, ‘the ardent turning of the soul toward the Divine; not to ask any particular good (as in the common meaning of prayer), but for good itself— for the universal Supreme Good’ of which we are a part on Earth, and out of the essence of which we have all emerged.”