Hana O'Rourke

(Originally presented at the Theosophical Society in Australia Convention, held at Perth,  January 2009)

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To begin with, not all education is delivered formally, as through lectures, courses and discussions. Although there are many of these available on the program of every Lodge, it is safe to say that most Theosophists are self-taught.
We may explore the meaning of Theosophical Education by examining three points related to the topic at hand:
HOW to reach other people,
WHAT to teach them, and
WHY education is so important.

From this, we may begin to understand what is Theosophical education.

People can learn Theosophy, Divine Wisdom, by first understanding that there is a subtle, deeper and greater aspect to their humanity. Sometimes described as the Soul, or the trinity of Atma-Buddhi-Manas, the Higher Self, the Spiritual Soul and the Immortal Causal consciousness. This is the inner ‘Voice of the Silence’, or conscience which is the ‘voice of reason’.

As the soul incarnates in successive personalities, the Law of Evolution, and its parent, the Law of Karma, draws wisdom and understanding from every reflected experience, to a lesser of greater degree depending on all previous experience and development.

Not only ourselves, but all Life is growing according to major and minor cycles of time, over billions of years. Our growth affects the life around us, and the life around us affects our growth. This Life is consciousness, with unlimited degrees and types of consciousness, and all of it is growing, and with unlimited potential.
At a middle point in human evolution, the incarnating personality is no longer instinctually learning, but begins to consciously learn, and to be increasingly self-determining in its search for wisdom. It wants to know, seeking truth within themselves and accuracy outside of themselves; seeking knowledge within themselves and love outside of themselves. Now begins the awareness of Theosophy and the light of Intuition shines over the pages of experience. Every page will teach something, though the synthesised teaching and wisdom of our elder brothers may help us to learn more quickly than otherwise. This knowledge does not come from intellectual memory alone, true knowledge is inseparable from our being, and this is wisdom or common sense in its higher meaning.
When inner wisdom is reflected in the outer world, then ignorance disappears.

A teacher may speak directly, or through a letter, or a book, or even an email. The teacher may speak to all aspects of our being at the same time.
So what is the best, Theosophical role model of a student? Damodar Mavalankar suggests: “The student must first learn the general axioms. For the time being, he will of course have to take them as assumptions, if he prefers to call them so.... What the student has first to do is to comprehend these axioms and, by employing the deductive method, to proceed from universals to particulars. He has then to reason from the "known to the unknown," and see if the inductive method of proceeding from particulars to universals supports those axioms. This process forms the primary stage of true contemplation.” (Italics added) [1]

This follows the Law of Periodicity or cycles.

So what is the best, Theosophical role model of a teacher?

Geoffrey Hodson, after many years of teaching occult subjects, notes:
“Teacher’s major task is impersonally and accurately to offer for consideration established principles, unchanging truths, fundamental laws. In doing this he speaks from the higher mind and gives nothing of his own. He enunciates axioms. There are few voices but many echoes.

He may, however, legitimately suggest - not dogmatically affirm - possible and useful applications of principles to life. In this he speaks from higher and lower mind and his personality therefore becomes involved. His duty, in consequence, is clearly and continually to differentiate between axioms and opinions. The teacher must be translucent to the light of Truth.

The teacher’s task is not personally and directly to mould opinion. It is rather to supply the correct materials for the free formation of opinions. He himself must not intrude. He is the impersonal voice of impartial Truth. He is successful in the degree in which he provides opportunity for the unbiased development of individual views from knowledge of basic truth.” (Bold emphasis added—HO) [2]
A teacher must not only be impersonal, but must also be so strongly filled with love, as to love everyone and all. A teacher must be able to see the divine possibilities in all.

Learn to distinguish the God in everyone and everything, no matter how evil he or it may appear on the surface. A teacher can help their student through that which they have in common, and that is the Divine Life; and must learn how to arouse that in them, must learn how to appeal to that in them; so shall the teacher save their student from wrong. (Loosely adapted from “At the Feet of the Master” by Alcyone, chapter on Discrimination).

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A teacher has earned the right to teach by virtue of the merit of being a successful student. And a teacher continues to be a student; though the gifts have been acquired by their own merit, they have also received much help from those who have gone before. Therefore, we have the responsibility to teach others to the best of our abilities, and the best they are able to assimilate. In teaching others, we never cease to educate ourselves. To teach less than the best, is to fail ourselves.

As a student, …

… However wise you may be already, on this Path you have much to learn; so much that here also there must be discrimination, and you must think carefully what is worth learning. All knowledge is useful, and one day you will have all knowledge; but while you have only part, take care that it is the most useful part. God is Wisdom as well as Love; and the more wisdom you have the more you can manifest of Him. Study then, but study first that which will most help you to help others. Work patiently at your studies, not that men may think you wise, not even that you may have the happiness of being wise, but because only the wise man can be wisely helpful. However much you wish to help, if you are ignorant you may do more harm than good. (Loosely adapted from “At the Feet of the Master” by Alcyone, chapter on Discrimination).

This point is again emphasized in a Letter from the Master of the Wisdom:
“WE are drawn, Lady, into the vortex of the destiny prepared previously by ourselves for ourselves, as the ship in the Maelstrom. You now begin to realise this. What shall you do? You cannot successfully resist fate. Are you ready to do your part in the great work of philanthropy? You have offered yourself for the Red Cross; but, Sister, there are sicknesses and wounds of the Soul that no Surgeon’s art can cure. Shall you help us teach mankind that the soul-sick must heal themselves? Your action will be your response. M... [3]
As mentioned earlier, we have a duty to teach others to the best of our abilities. Some help from the physical level, some from the psychological, some from the philosophical. Relief can be brought at all levels but understanding at the higher levels helps us to overcome our own suffering, and helps us to prevent further suffering in this and future lives.

“Try to see what is worth doing: and remember that you must not judge by the size of the thing. A small thing which is directly useful in the Master's work is far better worth doing than a large thing which the world would call good. You must distinguish not only the useful from the useless, but the more useful from the less useful. To feed the poor is a good and noble and useful work; yet to feed their souls is nobler and more useful than to feed their bodies. Any rich man can feed the body, but only those who know can feed the soul. If you know, it is your duty to help others to know.” [4]

Some teachers may be acutely aware of their great responsibility in the theosophical work, and may feel inadequate to carry out that work. One of the greatest Theosophical teachers, C.W. Leadbeater, in his book “The Inner Life” suggests the following idea: “It is a responsibility to teach, but on the other hand it is a very great privilege. Think of it rather in this way, that here are number of hungry souls, and Those who stand behind have been so kind to you as to give you the opportunity of being the channel through which these can be fed. You have the broad principles of the teaching clearly in mind, and your own common sense will keep you from going far wrong in details… If you keep these main principles steadily before your pupils, you are very little likely to go wrong in your teaching.”

“Some people may suggest that a person should make themselves perfect and reach adeptship before teaching others, but if HPB had waited several thousand years to reach adeptship before teaching others through such great works as the Secret Doctrine, then the Theosophical Society would not be in existence today, and the great misery that she has helped to reduce through the sharing of this knowledge would be an unbearable burden today. Also, she would not have the honour of the great karma she has accumulated through her work.”
Ultimately, a teacher should transcend the physical, emotional and mental states of consciousness, and become a Light of Truth that will help others beyond simply this one life.

Quoting from “The Idyll of the White Lotus”, Book 2, Chapters 7 and 8, a lengthy passage but well worth studying, this shows, if one may suggest, what it is that is our duty and responsibility to teach, allowing of course for that Freedom of Thought which is valuable to every member of the Theosophical Society:
"Twin stars of the evening, thou the last of the long line of seers who have made the wisdom of the Temple and crowned the greatness of Egypt with glory! The night is at hand, and the darkness must fall and hide the earth from the beauty of the heavens above it.”

“Yet the truth shall be left with my people, the ignorant children of earth. And it is for you to leave behind you a burning light, a record for all time which men shall look at and wonder at in ages hence.”
“The record of your lives, and of the truth which inspired you, shall go to other races, in other parts of the dim earth, to a people who have only heard of the light, who have never seen it. Be strong, for your work is great. Thou, my child of the snowy soul, thou hadst (up till now) not strength to battle alone with the growing darkness; but now, give of thy faith and purity to this one, whose wings are smirched with stains of the earth, but who has gathered from that dark contact strength for the coming battle. Fight thou to the last for thy Queen Mother. Speak to my people, and tell them of the great truths; tell them that the soul lives and is blessed, unless they drown it in degradation; tell them there is freedom and peace for all who will free themselves from desires; tell them to look to me and find rest in my love; tell them there is the lotus-bloom in every human soul, and that it will open wide to the light unless they poison its roots; tell them to live in innocence and seek after truth, and I will come and walk in their midst, and show them the way into that place of peace where all is beauty and all are content.”

“Tell them I love my children and would come and dwell in their homes and bring that content which is more than any prosperity, even unto these their hearths of the earth. Tell them this in a voice like a trumpet-call, which cannot be misunderstood. Save those who will hear, and make my temple once more a dwelling for the Spirit of Truth.”
“The temple must fall, but it shall not fall in iniquity. Egypt must decay; but it shall not decay in ignorance. It shall hear a voice it cannot forget; and the words which that voice utters shall be the hidden heirloom of ages, and shall again be spoken under another sky, and herald the dawn which must break through the long blackness. Thou, my youngest, thou who art both strong and weak, prepare! The struggle is at hand; do not flinch. One duty is thine; to teach the people. Do not fear that wisdom shall fail thy tongue. I, who am Wisdom, will speak in thy voice. I, who am Wisdom, will be at thy side. Look up, my child, and gather strength."

"There are three truths which are absolute, and which cannot be lost, but yet may remain silent for lack of speech.

"The soul of man is immortal, and its future is the future of a thing whose growth and splendor has no limit.

"The principle which gives life dwells in us, and without us, is undying and eternally beneficent, is not heard or seen or smelt, but is perceived by the man who desires perception.

"Each man is his own absolute lawgiver, the dispenser of glory or gloom to himself; the decreer of his life, his reward, his punishment.
"These truths, which are as great as is life itself, are as simple as the simplest mind of man. Feed the hungry with them.”

Each is a teacher to others, but as union is strength, so is the Theosophical Society, a Society dedicated to Divine Wisdom and the accumulation of the fruits of the investigation and inquiry into that wisdom, a place in which people may come together to make this sharing of truth even more potent.

 

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Why education is so important? Because it brings us to the Path. For this point, let’s look again at “At the Feet of the Master”, (pages 2 & 3):

“In all the world there are only two kinds of people- those who know, and those who do not know; and this knowledge is the thing which matters. What religion a man holds, to what race he belongs- these things are not important; the really important thing is this knowledge- the knowledge of God's plan for men. For God has a plan and that plan is evolution. When once a man has seen that and really knows it, he cannot help working for it and making himself one with it.”

Through education, we transform ourselves, and so help to transform the whole world. The best transformation, for both ourselves and the world, is to come into contact with the Divine Plan for this world, so that we can help in the greater work and its fulfilment.

“Greater study, meditation and service to others will eventually bring the Inner Self to seek unity with the One Life. This will gradually bring one to the idea of treading the Path and of seeking the help of those who have gone before. Ultimately, one will not only tread the Path, but will so eliminate all sense of separation as to become the Path itself. Acceptance as a Pupil of one of the Masters of Wisdom brings not only greater advantages to that soul, but also helps it to become a Light through which the higher powers may flow.”

“The stage of acceptance is, therefore, of great importance in the evolution of the individual. The fact of the unity of all life and of all consciousness renders it also of great importance to the race; for he who treads the Path moves not away from his fellow-men, but towards closer self-identification with them. Every spiritual experience of those upon the Path is reflected in every human being in varying degrees according to the power of response in each. At each expansion and illumination, a light shines forth throughout the egoic world, illuminating every ego, as morning sunshine lights up the peaks of a mountain range.” (Note: ‘Egoic’, as used here, is not the personal ego of Freudian psychology but is the Universal individuality of the Greek philosophers—ed)

“The majority of human egos, though awake within, have not yet attained egoic self-consciousness. Their response to such vivifying influence is slight yet definite; their attainment of egoic self-consciousness is brought nearer in time.)”
“At each step upon the Path the neophyte becomes egoically more powerful, shines with greater luminosity on the higher planes, and develops a greater quickening power. The Adept most potently radiates power, light, and love upon all living things, human, sub-human, and angelic. His service to His pupils is an act in time. His service to Life is everlasting, part of His continuous ministration to all that lives.”

“When once the whole being of the pupil has been consecrated to the service of the world and to his Master, His consciousness becomes the base from which all work is done. The pupil lives and works within the omnipresence of the Master, who may be likened to the Sun, with disciples as encircling globes, held and sustained in their orbits by His power. The Master, the Giver of Life, Light, and Power; they, the imperfect manifestations of the same triplicity, developing rapidly under His influence towards that perfection which He has attained. He, as Solar Logos; they, as the planetary logoi; the whole foreshadowing the solar system over which He with their collaboration will preside, when He attains to the stature of a Solar God.”

“When you become a pupil of the Master, you may always try the truth of your thought by laying it beside His. For the pupil is one with his Master, and he needs only to put back his thought into the Master's thought to see at once whether it agrees. If it does not, it is wrong, and he changes it instantly, for the Master's thought is perfect, because He knows all. Those who are not yet accepted by Him cannot do quite this; but they may greatly help themselves by stopping often to think: "What would the Master think about this? What would the Master say or do under these circumstances?" For you must never do or say or think what you cannot imagine the Master as doing or saying or thinking.” [5]
Benjamin Franklin (Statesman, Scientist, Philosopher, Writer and Inventor) once wrote; “The only thing more expensive than education is ignorance,” an expense measured by suffering to others. And Aristotle, reflecting Plato, notes; “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.” Together, these statements remind us that Theosophical Education is founded on Love.

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[1] Damodar K. Mavalankar,  “Contemplation”, p. 399 in “Damodar And The Pioneers Of The Theosophical Movement”, comp by Sven Eek, TPH Adyar 1965 and “The Theosophist”  Aug 1884)
[2] Geoffrey Hodson, “Light of the Sanctuary”, p. 109, TPH Philippines, 1988
[3] Letter 72, M to Mary Gebhard, “Letters From The Masters Of The Wisdom”, 2nd Series, TPH Adyar 1925
[4] Alcyone, “At the Feet of the Master”, in the chapter on “Discrimination”, p. 11-12, TPH Adyar 1911
[5] Geoffrey Hodson, “Meditations on The Occult Life”, p. 53-54, TPH Adyar, 1937.

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