Cummulative Quote of the Day
from the Secret Doctrine by Blavatsky
11/01
These truths are in no sense put forward as a revelation; nor
does the author claim the position of a revealer of mystic lore, now made
public for the first time in the world's history. For what is contained
in this work is to be found scattered throught thousands of volumes embodying
the scriptures of th great Asiatic and early European religiions, hidden
under glyph and symbol, and hitherto left unnoticed because of this veil.
— Secret Doctrine Vol. I. preface page vii.
11/02
What is now attempted is to gather the oldest tenets together and to
make of them one harmonious and unbroken whole. The sole advantage which
the writer has over her predecessors, is that she need not resort to personal
speculations and theories. For this work is a partial statement of what
she herself has been taught by more advanced students, supplemented, in
a few details only, by the results of her own study and observation.
— Secret Doctrine Vol I preface page vii.
11/03
But it is perhaps desirable to state unequivocally that the teachings,
however fragmentary and incomplete, contained in these volumes, belong neither
to the Hindu, the Zoroastrian, the Chaldean, nor the Egyptian religion,
neither to Buddhism, Islam, Judaism nor Christianity exclusively. The Secret
Doctrine is the essence of all these. Sprung from it in their origins, the
various religious schemes are now made to merge back into their original
element, out of which every mystery and dogma has grown, developed, and
become materialised. — Secret Doctrine Vol I preface page viii.
11/04
The aim of this work may be thus stated: to show that Nature is not "a
fortuitous concurrence of atoms," and to assign to man his rightful
place in the scheme of the Universe; to rescue from degradation the archaic
truths which are the basis of all religions; and to uncover, to some extent,
the fundamental unity from which they all spring; finally, to show that
the occult side of Nature has never been approached by the Science of modern
civilization. — Secret Doctrine Vol I. preface page viii.
11/05
Old truisms are often the wisest. — Secret Doctrine Vol I. Introductory
page xvii.
11/06
The "Wisdom Religion" is the inheritance of all the nations,
the world over. — Secret Doctrine Vol I. Intro page xviii.
11/07
Esoteric philosophy reconciles all religions, strips every one of its
outward, human garments, and shows the root of each to be identical with
that of every other great religion. — Secret Doctrine Vol I. intro
page xx.
11/08
It [the Esoteric philosophy] proves the necessity of an absolute Divine
Principle in nature. It denies Deity no more than it does the Sun. Esoteric
philosophy has never rejected God in Nature, nor Deity as the absolute and
abstract Ens. It only refuses to accept any of the gods of the so-called
monotheistic religions, gods created by man in his own image and likeness,
a blasphemous and sorry caricature of the Ever Unkowable. — Secret
Doctrine Vol I. intro page xx.
11/09
The Hindu Reformer [Buddha] limited his public teachings to the purely
moral and physiological aspect of the Wisdom-Religion, to Ethics and MAN alone. Things "unseen and incorporeal," the
mystery of Being outside our terrestrial sphere, the great Teacher left
entirely untouched in his public lectures, reserving the hidden Truths for
a select circle of his Arhats. The latter received their Initiation at the
famous Saptaparna cave (the Sattapanni of Mahavansa) near Mount Baibhar
(the Webhara of the Pali MSS.). This cave was in Rajagriha, the ancient
capital of Mogadha, and was the Cheta cave of Fa-hian, as rightly
suspected by some archaeologists. — Secret Doctrine Vol I. intro
page xx.
11/10
His [Buddha's] Secret Doctrine, however, differed in no wise from that
of the initiated Brahmins of his day. The Buddha was a child of the Aryan
soil, a born Hindu, a Kshatrya and a disciple of the "twice born"
(the initiated Brahmins) or Dwijas. His teachings, therefore, could not
be different from their doctrines, for the whole Buddhist reform merely
consisted in giving out a portion of that which had been kept secret from
every man outside of the "enchanted" circle of Temple-Initiates
and ascetics. Unable to teach all that had been imparted to him -
owing to his pledges ... — Secret Doctrine Vol I intro page xxi.
11/11
That doctrine [the secret soul doctrine of Buddha] was preserved
secretly - too secretly, perhaps - within the sanctuary. The mystery that
shrouded its chief dogma and aspirations - Nirvana - has so tried and irritated
the curiosity of those scholars who have studied it, that, unable to solve
it logically and satisfactorily by untying the Gordian knot, they cut it
through, by declaring that Nirvana meant absolute annihilation.
— Secret Doctrine Vol I, intro page xxi.
11/12
Toward the end of the first quarter of this century [the 19th], a distinct
class of literature appeared in the world ... Hindu, Egyptian, and other
ancient religions, myths, and emblems were made to yield anything the symbologist
wanted them to yield ... This is the true reason, perhaps, why the outline
of a few fundamental truths from the Secret Doctrine of the Archaic ages
is now permitted to see the light, after long millenniums of the most profound
silence and secrecy. — Secret Doctrine Vol I intro pages xxi -
xxii.
11/13
I say "a few truths," advisedly, because that which
must remain unsaid could not be contained in a hundred such volumes, nor
could it be imparted to the present generation of Sadducees. But even the
little that is now given is better than complete silence upon those vital
truths. — Secret Doctrine Vol I. intro page xxii.
11/14
There is a fair minority of earnest students who are entitled to learn
the few truths that may be given to them now; and now much more than
ten years ago, when "Isis Unveiled," or even the later attempts
to explain the mysteries of esoteric science, were published. —
Secret Doctrine Vol I intro page xxii.
11/15
One of the greatest, and, withal, the most serious objection to the correctness
and reliability of the whole work [the Secret Doctrine] will be the
preliminary STANZAS ... [being] not in the possession
of European Libraries. This is a great drawback to those who follow the
methods of research prescribed by official Science; but to the students
of Occultism, and to every genuine Occultist, this will be of little moment.
— Secret Doctrine Vol I intro pages xxii - xxiii.
11/16
The members of several esoteric schools - the seat of which is beyond
the himalayas, and whose ramifications may be found in China, Japan, India,
Tibet, and even in Syria, besides South America - claim to have in their
possession the sum total of sacred and philosophical works in MSS.
[manuscripts] and type [i.e. "in print", solid "type"
being the printing technology of the 19th century]: all the works, in fact,
that have ever been written, in whatever language or characters, since the
art of writing began; from the ideographic hieroglyphs down to the alphabet
of Cadmus and the Devanagari. — Secret Doctrine Vol I intro page
xxiii.
11/17
It has been claimed in all ages that ever since the destruction of the
Alexandrian Library (see Isis Unveiled, Vol. II., p. 27), every work
of a character that might have led the profane to the ultimate discovery
and comprehension of some of the mysteries of the Secret Science, was, owing
to the combined efforts of the members of the Brotherhoods, diligently searched
for. It is added, moreover, by those who know that once found, save three
copies left and stored safely away, such works were all destroyed. In India,
the last of the precious manuscripts were secured and hidden during the
reign of the Emperor Akbar. — Secret Doctrine Vol I. intro page
xxiii.
11/18
Moreover in all the large and wealthy lamasaries, there are subterranean
crypts and cave-libraries, cut in the rock, whenever the gonpa
and the lhakhang are situated in the mountains. Beyond the Western
Tsaydam, in the solitary passes of Kuen-lun there are several such
hiding-places. Along the ridge of Altyn-Toga, whose soil no European foot
has ever trodden so far, there exists a certain hamlet, lost in a deep gorge.
It is a small cluster of houses, a hamlet rather than a monastery, with
a poor-looking temple in it, with one old lama, a hermit, living near by
to watch it. Pilgrims say that the subterranean galleries and halls under
it contain a collection of books, the number of which, according to the
accounts given, is too large to find room even in the British Museum.
— Secret Doctrine Vol I intro page xxiv.
11/19
An immense, incalculable number of MSS, and even printed works known
to have existed, are now to be found no more. They have disappeared
without leaving the slightest trace behind them. Were they works of no importance
they might, in the natural course of time, have been left to perish, and
their very names would have been obliterated from human memory. But it is
not so; for as now ascertained, most of them contained the true keys to
works still extant, and entirely incomprehensible, for the greater portion
of their readers, without those additional volumes of commentaries and explanations.
Such are, for instance, the works of Lao-tse, the predecesor of Confucius.
— Secret Doctrine Vol I. intro page xxv.
11/20
The Japanese, among whom are now to be found the most learned of the
priests and followers of Lao-tse, simply laugh at the blunders and hypotheses
of the European Chinese scholars; and tradition affirms that the commentaries
to which our Western Sinologues have access are not the real occult
records, but intentional veils, and that the true commentaries, as well
as almost all the texts, have long since disappeared from the eyes
of the profane. — Secret Doctrine Vol I. intro page xxv.
11/21
The points of resemblance - almost of identity - between the Jewish and
the Chaldean Scriptures, made the latter most dangerous to Eusebius, in
his rôle of defender and champion of the new faith which had
adopted the Jewish Scriptures, and with them an absurd chronology. It is
pretty certain that Eusebius did not spare the Egyptian Synchonistic tables
of Manetho - so much so that Bunsen charges him with mutilating history
most unscrupulously. — Secret Doctrine Vol I. intro page xxvi.
11/22
They do not seem to allow for one moment the possibility that the texts
may be lost only for West and for themselves; or, that the
Asiatic people should have the unparalleled boldness to keep their most
sacred records out of the reach of foreigners, thus refusing to deliver
them to the profanation and misuse of races even so "vastly superior"
to themselves. — Secret Doctrine Vol I. intro page xxviii.
11/23
Nevertheless, having found that "there is a natural connection between
language and religion"; and, secondly, that there was a common
Aryan religion before the separation of the Aryan race; a common
Semitic religion before the separation of the Semitic race; and a common
Turanian religion before the separation of the chinese and the other tribes
belonging to the Turanian class; having, in fact, only discovered "three
ancient centres of religion" and "three centres of language,"
and though as entirely ignorant of those primitive religions and languages,
as of their origin, the professor [Max Müuller] does not hesitate to
declare "that a truly historical basis for a scientific treatment
of those principal religions of the world has been gained!" —
Secret Doctrine Vol I. intro page xxvix.
11/24
When told that Professor Max Müller had declared to the audiences
of his"Lectures" that the theory ... "that there was a
primeval preternaturalrevelation granted to the fathers of the human
race, finds but few supporters at present," - the holy and learned
man laughed. His answer wassuggestive. "If Mr. Moksh Mooler,
as he pronounced the name, were aBrahmin, and came with me, I might take
him to a gupta cave (a secretcrypt) near Okhee Math, in the Himalayas,
where he would soon find out thatwhat crossed the Kalapani (the black
waters of the ocean) from Indiato Europe were only the bits of rejected
copies of some passages from oursacred books. There was a "primeval
revelation," and it still exists;nor will it ever be lost to the world,
but will reappear; though the Mlechchhas[foreigners] will of course have
to wait." Questioned further on this point, hewould say no more. This
was at Meerut, in 1880. — Secret Doctrine Vol I. intro page xxx.
11/25
For, if the results [of Max Müllers's researches] show
that neither the New nor even the Old Testament borrowed anything
from the more ancient religion of the Brahmans and Buddhists, it does not
follow that the Jews have not borrowed all they knew from the Chaldean records,
the latter being mutilated later on by Eusebius [a Christian father].
— Secret Doctrine Vol I, intro page xxxi.
11/26
As to the Chaldeans, they assuredly got their primitive learning from
the Brahmans, for Rawlinson shows an undeniably Vedic influence in the early
mythology of Babylon; and Col. Vans Kennedy has long since justly declared
that Babylonia was, from her origin, the seat of Sanskrit and Brahman learning.
— Secret Doctrine Vol I, intro page xxxi.
11/27
In their efforts to collect together the many skeins of unwritten history,
it is a bold step for our Orientalists to take, to deny, a priori,
everything that does not dovetail with their special conclusions. Thus,
while new discoveries are daily made of great arts and sciences having existed
far back in the night of time, even the knowledge of writing is refused
to some of the most ancient nations, and they are credited with barbarism
instead of culture. — Secret Doctrine Vol I, intro page xxxii.
11/28
The traces of an immense civilization, even in Central Asia, are still
to be found. This civilization is undeniably prehistoric. And how
can there be civilization without a literature, in some form, without annals
or chronicles? Common sense alone ought to supplement the broken links in
the history of departed nations. — Secret Doctrine Vol I, intro
page xxxii.
11/29
The gigantic, unbroken wall of the mountains that hem in the whole table-land
of Tibet, from the upper course of the river Khuan-Khé down to the
Kara-Korum hills, witnessed a civilization during milleniums of years, and
would have strange secrets to tell mankind. The Eastern and Central portions
of those regions - the Nan-Schayn and the Altyne-taga - were once upon a
time covered with cities that could well vie with Babylon. A whole geological
period has swept over the land, since those cities breathed their last,
as the mounds of shifting sand, and the sterile and now dead soil of the
immense central plains of the basin of Tarim testify. — Secret
Doctrine Vol I, intro page xxxii.
11/30
But there is no need to send the reader across the desert, when the same
proofs of ancient civilization are found even in comparatively populated
regions of the same country. The oasis of Tchertchen, for instance, situated
about 4,000 feet above the level of the river Tchertchen-D'arya, is surrounded
with the ruins of archaic towns and cities in every direction. There, some
3,000 human beings represent the relics of about a hundred extinct nations
and races - the very names of which are now unknown to our ethnologists.
An antropologist would feel more than embarrassed to class, divide and subdivide
them; the more so, as the respective descendants of all these antediluvian
races and tribes know as little of their own forefathers themselves, as
if they had fallen from the moon. When questioned about their origin, they
reply that they know not whence their fathers had come ... — Secret
Doctrine Vol I, intro page xxxiii.
12/01
To recapitulate. The Secret Doctrine was the universally diffused religion
of the ancient and prehistoric world. Proofs of its diffusion, authentic
records of its history, a complete chain of documents, showing its character
and presence in every land with the teaching of all its great adepts, exist
to this day in the secret crypts of libraries belonging to the Occult Fraternity.
— Secret Doctrine Vol I, intro page xxxiv.
12/02
This statement [yesterday's quote] is rendered more credible by a consideration
of the following facts: the tradition of the thousands of ancient parchments
saved when the Alexandrian library was destroyed; the thousands of Sanskrit
works which disappeared in India in the reign of Akbar; the universal tradition
in China and Japan that the true old texts with the commmentaries, which
alone make them comprehensible - amounting to many thousands of volumes
- have long passed out of the reach of profane hands; the disppearance of
the vast sacred and occult literature of Babylon; the loss of those keys
which alone could solve the thousand riddles of the Egyptian hieroglyphic
records; the tradition in India that the real secret commentaries which
alone make the Veda intelligible, though no longer visible to profane eyes,
still remain for the initiate, hidden in secret caves and crypts; and an
identical belief among the Buddhists, with regard to their secret books.
The Occultists assert that all these exist, safe from Western spoliating
hands, to re-appear in some more enlightened age... . — Secret
Doctrine Vol I intro page xxxiv.
12/03
For it is not the fault of the initiates that these documents are now
"lost" to the profane; nor was their policy dictated by selfishness,
or any desire to monopolise the life-giving sacred lore. There were portions
of the Secret Science that for incalculable ages had to remain concealed
from the profane gaze. But this was because to impart to the unprepared
multitude secrets of such tremendous importance, was equivalent to giving
a child a lighted candle in a powder magazine [storeroom for explosives].
— Secret Doctrine Vol I intro pages xxxiv to xxxv.
12/04
The documents were concealed, it is true, but the knowledge itself and
its actual existence had never been made a secret of by the Hierophants
of the Temple, wherein MYSTERIES have ever been made
a discipline and stimulus to virtue. This is very old news, and was repeatedly
made known by the great adepts, from Pythagoras and Plato down to the Neoplatonists.
It was the new religion of the Nazarenes that wrought a change for the worse
- in the policy of centuries. — Secret Doctrine Vol I, page xxxv.
12/05
Is it [Theosophy] a new religion, we are asked? By no means; it
is not a religion, nor is its philosophy new; for as already stated,
it is as old as thinking man. Its tenets are not now published for the first
time, but have been cautiously given out to, and taught by, more than one
European Initate - especially by the late Ragon. — Secret Doctrine
Vol I, page xxxvi.
12/06
Thus every nation received in its turn some of the said truths, under
the veil of its own local and special symbolism; which, as time went on,
developed into a more or less philosophical cultus, a Pantheon in mythical
disguise. Therefore is Confucius, a very ancient legislator in historical
chronology, though a very modern Sage in the World's History, show by Dr.
Legge - who calls him "emphatically a transmitter, not a maker"
- as saying: "I only hand on: I cannot create new things. I believe
in the ancients and therefore I love them." — Secret Doctrine
Vol I intro xxxvi to xxxvii
12/07
This first instalment of the esoteric doctrines is based upon Stanzas,
which are the records of a people unknown to ethnology; it is claimed that
they are written in a tongue absent from the nomenclature of languages and
dialects with which philology is acquainted; they are said to emante from
a source (Occultism) repudiated by science; and, finally, they are offered
through an agency, incessantly discredited before the world by all those
who hate unwelcome truths, or have some special hobby of their own to defend.
Therefore, the rejection of these teachings may be expected, and must be
accepted beforehand. No one styling himself a "scholar," in whatever
department of exact science, will be permitted to regard these teachings
seriously. They will be derided and rejected a priori in this century;
but only in this one. For in the twentieth century of our era scholars will
begin to recognize that the Secret Doctrine has neither been invented
nor exaggerated, but, on the contrary, simply outlined; and finally, that
its teachings antedate the Vedas. — Secret Doctrine Vol I intro
page xxxvii.
12/08
Have not the latter [the Vedas] been derided, rejected, and called "a
modern forgery" even so recently as fifty years ago? [50 years prior
to 1888] Was not Sanskrit proclaimed at one time the progeny of, and a dialect
derived from, the Greek, according to Lemprière and other scholars?
About 1820, Prof. Max Müller tells us, the sacred books of the Brahmans,
of the Magians, and of the Buddhists, "were all but unknown, their
very existence was doubted, and there was not a single scholar who could
have translated a line of the Veda ... of the Zend Avesta, or ... of the
Buddhist Tripitaka, and now the Vedas are proved to be the work of the highest
antiquity whose 'preservation amounts almost to a marvel' ["](Lecture
on the Vedas). — Secret Doctrine Vol I intro pages xxxvii to xxxviii..
12/09
The same will be said [is a forgery etc.] of the Secret Archaic Doctrine,
when proofs are given of its undeniable existence and records. But it will
take centuries [from 1888] before much more is given from it. ... In Century
the Twentieth some disciple more informed, and far better fitted, may be
sent by the Masters of Wisdom to give final and irrefutable proofs that
there exists a Science called Gupta-Vidya [esoteric knowledge]; and
that like the once-mysterious sources of the Nile, the source of all religions
and philosophies now known to the world has been for many ages forgotten
and lost to men, but is at last found. — Secret Doctrine Vol I
intro page xxxviii.
12/10
Such statements as will now be made, have to be shown warranted by various
authorities: those of ancient philosophers, classics and even certain learned
Church Fathers, some of whom knew these doctrines because they had studied
them, had seen and read works written upon them; and some of whom had even
been personally initiated into the ancient Mysteries, during the performance
of which the arcane doctrines were allegorically enacted. — Secret
Doctrine Vol I intro page xxxix.
12/11
He [the reader] is asked to give all his attention to that millenium
which divided the pre-Christian and the post-Christian periods, by
the year ONE of the Nativity. This event - whether
historically correct or not - has nevertheless been made to serve as a first
signal for the erection of manifold bulwarks against any possible return
of, or even a glimpse into, the hated religions of the Past; hated and dreaded
- because throwing such a vivid light on the new and intentionally veiled
interpretation of what is now known as the "New dispensation."
— Secret Doctrine Vol I intro page xl.
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