Texts and Fragments On a Decisive Task
Helena P. Blavatsky
Bust of H. P. Blavatsky (1831-1891), by Ukrainian sculptor Alexey Leonov
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A 2016 Editorial Note:
The following material deserves being read once and
again in a calm, thoughtful way. The topic is not easy:
students must remember that as long the motive is not pure
and elevated, it is better that the will remains weak. Thus, at
least, the fall and the defeat will be smaller. Before one’s will
gets strong, it must be responsible, constant, and must be
firmly established in the world of altruism and universal truth.
A worthwhile intention is inseparable from ethics and brotherhood.
(Carlos Cardoso Aveline)
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1. Will and Desire
Will is the exclusive possession of man on this our plane of consciousness. It divides him from the brute in whom instinctive desire only is active.
Desire, in its widest application, is the one creative force in the Universe. In this sense it is indistinguishable from Will; but we men never know desire under this form while we remain only men. Therefore Will and Desire are here considered as opposed.
Thus Will is the offspring of the Divine, the God in man; Desire the motive power of the animal life.
Most men live in and by desire, mistaking it for will. But he who would achieve must separate will from desire, and make his will the ruler; for desire is unstable and ever changing, while will is steady and constant.
Both will and desire are absolute creators, forming the man himself and his surroundings. But will creates intelligently – desire blindly and unconsciously. The man, therefore, makes himself in the image of his desires, unless he creates himself in the likeness of the Divine, through his will, the child of the light.
His task is twofold: to awaken the will, to strengthen it by use and conquest, to make it absolute ruler within his body; and, parallel with this, to purify desire.
Knowledge and will are the tools for the accomplishment of this purification. [1]
2. Desire Made Pure
When desire is for the purely abstract – when it has lost all trace or tinge of “self” – then it has become pure.
The first step towards this purity is to kill out the desire for the things of matter, since these can only be enjoyed by the separated personality.
The second is to cease from desiring for oneself even such abstractions as power, knowledge, love, happiness, or fame; for they are but selfishness after all.
Life itself teaches these lessons; for all such objects of desire are found Dead Sea fruit in the moment of attainment. This much we learn from experience. Intuitive perception seizes on the positive truth that satisfaction is attainable only in the infinite; the will makes that conviction an actual fact of consciousness, till at last all desire is centred on the Eternal. [2]
3. Two Fragments From “Isis Unveiled”
* The will creates; for the will in motion is force, and force produces matter. [3]
* Eliphas Levi, the modern magician, describes the astral light in the following sentence: “We have said that to acquire magical power, two things are necessary: to disengage the will from all servitude, and to exercise it in control.” [4]
4. Selected Sentences From Various Articles
[Quotations will be found in the “Collected Writings”, H. P. Blavatsky, TPH, USA. Volume and page are indicated at the end of each excerpt.]
* Admitting even that the will of man is not the direct cause of magnetic effects, it yet, as Monsieur Donato, the celebrated magnetizer of Paris, remarks, ‘plays upon and guides many a mysterious force in nature, the mere existence of which is totally unknown to science’. (Vol. II, p. 282.)
* …Does our friend suppose any Adept ever became such without making himself one, without breaking through every impediment through sheer force of WILL and SOUL-POWER? Such adeptship would be a mere farce. ‘AN ADEPT BECOMES, HE IS NOT MADE’, was the motto of the ancient Rosicrucians. (Vol. III, p. 28.)
* Genuine unselfish LOVE combined with WILL, is a ‘power’ in itself. (Vol. IX, p. 286.)
* Regularity in life consists of regularity in speech and action, and these cannot exist apart from regularity in thought and feeling. In Practical Theosophy, therefore, it is necessary that these five conditions should coexist viz. RIGHT THOUGHT, RIGHT FEELING, RIGHT SPEECH, RIGHT ACTION, RIGHT LIVING. (Vol. XII, p. 213.)
* Prayer and contemplation added to asceticism are the best means of discipline in order to become a Theurgist, where there is no regular initiation. For intense prayer for the accomplishment of some object is only intense will and desire, resulting in unconscious Magic. (Vol. XIV, p. 116.)
* Colonel Olcott [5] was never an atheist “to our knowledge”, but an esoteric Buddhist, rejecting a personal God. Nor was genuine prayer – i.e., the exercise of one’s intense will over events (commonly brought about by blind chance) to determine their direction – ever repugnant to him. Even prayers as commonly understood, are not “repugnant” in his sight, but simply useless, when not absurd and ridiculous as in the case of prayers to either stop or bring about rain, etc. By “prayer” he means – WILL, the desire or command magnetically expressed that such and such a thing beneficent to ourselves or others should come to pass. (Vol. IV, pp. 519-520.)
NOTES:
[1] From “Collected Writings”, H.P. Blavatsky, TPH, USA, volume VIII, page 109.
[2] From “Collected Writings”, H.P. Blavatsky, TPH, USA, volume VIII, page 129.
[3] “Isis Unveiled”, H. P. Blavatsky, Theosophy Company, volume I, p. 140.
[4] “Isis Unveiled”, Theosophy Co., volume I, p. 137.
[5] A reference to Henry S. Olcott, co-founder of the modern theosophical movement in 1875, in New York.
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In September 2016, after a careful analysis of the state of the esoteric movement worldwide, a group of students decided to form the Independent Lodge of Theosophists, whose priorities include the building of a better future in the different dimensions of life.
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