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Gandhi, like Gautama, did not try to escape the evident truth of human suffering through seeking mindless oblivion or neurotic distractions, nor did he choose to come to terms with it through compensatory spiritual ambition or conventional religious piety. Rejecting the route of cloistered monasticism, he pondered deeply and agonizingly upon the human condition, and sought to find the redemptive function and therapeutic meaning of human misery. Translating his painful insights into daily acts of tapas - self-chosen spiritual exercises and the repeated re-enactments of lifelong meditation in the midst of fervent social activity - he came to see the need for a continual rediscovery of the purpose of living by all those who reject the hypnosis of bourgeois society, with its sanctimonious hypocrisy and notorious 'double standards' for individual and public life. Spiritual striving towards enlightenment can help to raise a ladder of contemplation along which the seeker may ascend and descend, participating in the worlds of eternity and time, perfecting one's sense of timing in the sphere of action. In most people, alas, the seed is not allowed to sprout or grow owing to chaotic and contradictory aims and desires, tinged by vain longings and delusive expectations, fantasies and fears, blocking any vibrant encounter with the realities of this world as well as any possibility of envisioning Jacob's ladder, "pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross". Gandhi's own spiritual conviction grew, with the ripening of age, that social reformers and non-violent revolutionaries must repeatedly cleanse their sight and remove all self-serving illusions by placing themselves squarely within the concrete context of mass suffering.

The purpose of this book is to bring together in a convenient and coherent form some of the many HERMES articles written by Prof. Raghavan Iyer on the subjects of meditation and self-study. In truth, meditation and self-study represent two sides of one human activity. The one is the centrifugal movement of consciousness expanding to Universals beyond the limits of Self; the other is the centripetal movement focusing with laser-like precision upon the particulars within the limits of Self. They represent roughly the principles of Buddhi and Manas acting within the incarnated Manasic principle; for the spiritual aspirant they should - in time - become as natural as breathing in and breathing out. These two aspects of the inbreathing and outbreathing within the neophyte's consciousness are dealt with in the three treatises of The Voice of the Silence and Prof. Iyer's seminal article, Meditation and Self-Study: "We might begin to wonder whether perhaps there is a golden chord that connects the golden sphere of a man of meditation and the complex intermediary realms in which he must, by pain and anguish and awakening, by knitting together minute golden moments rescued from a great deal of froth and self-deception, come to know himself. If there were not a fundamental connection between meditation and self-study, something of the uniquely precious wisdom in this great text would be lost to us. When we begin to realize this in our lives, we come to appreciate that, while we may not be in a position to make judgments about teachers and schools in a vast and largely unrecorded history or in our own time, nonetheless we do know that there is something profoundly important in stressing both meditation and self-study, in bringing the two together. We must reconcile what looked like a pair of opposites and get beyond despair to something else which allows an existential and dynamic balance between meditation and self-study.

Between 1975 and 1989, articles on great thinkers and teachers were published monthly in Hermes, the organ of the United Lodge of Theosophists in Santa Barbara, California. The articles in this volume consist of a selection of remarkable Buddhist teachers and promulgators of the Bodhisattva Path, the path of service to all humanity. There are many illustrious teachers of this path who have labored for the world in the last two and a half millennia, and this selection is designed to give a sense of the immense range and richness of the Indo-Tibetan Buddhist tradition. This is the second volume in the collection of teachers from diverse spiritual schools of thought. The first volume presented those figures associated with the Seven-Century Plan initiated by Tsong Kha Pa for the Western world, culminating in the founding of the Theosophical Movement. There Tsong Kha Pa was discussed in terms of this Plan and its esoteric meaning. In this volume, Tsong Kha Pa is presented as the Buddhist teacher who rejuvenated Buddhism in Tibet, creating the Gelukpa Order, of which the Dalai Lamas are spiritual leaders. The third volume will focus on Chinese teachers-Confucian, Taoist and Buddhist-and Japanese Buddhist exemplars.Since these articles were written, an enormous amount of scholarship has emerged, especially regarding the teachers and schools found in this volume. Many Tibetan texts have been carefully translated into English by highly trained individuals and teams of translators, thanks to the spread of Tibetan centers across the globe. Much of this ocean of material is profound but quite technical. The articles in this volume can serve as a general introduction to what is rapidly becoming a vast library of Buddhist history, teaching and knowledge. And they intimate the deeper meanings of the Bodhisattva Path which become clear only as a student or disciple assimilates the Teachings over a lifetime of study, self-examination, and self-sacrifice.In addition to the articles on these remarkable individuals, there are articles by the great Theosophical teachers Helena Blavatsky and Raghavan Iyer which place fundamental Buddhist ideas in a broad context. These include essays on the Bodhisattva Ideal, esoteric Buddhism, reincarnation in Tibet, and the soul of Tibet, among others. Taken together, the intuitive reader will not only gain a sense of the magnificent heritage of Buddhist thought over 2500 years but also glimpse the deep spiritual impulse working its way in and through the strivings of humanity. Contemplation of the core ideas in these articles will nurture the deepest aspirations of each individual who is actively seeking Buddha's Path to Enlightenment. One's perspective on the world and reality will be radically altered through a mature study and reflection on Buddhist thought in these essays.

The Glossary provides meanings and context to the wealth of Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Tibetan, Chaldean, Persian, Scandinavian, Hebrew, Kabalistic, Gnostic, and Occult terms found in the many works of Theosophical literature: the two volumes each of Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine, The Key to Theosophy, The Ocean of Theosophy, the journals Theosophist, Lucifer and The Path, and other publications of the 19th Century Theosophical Society.

The central tenets of Theosophia are not derived from any ancient or modern sect but represent the accumulated wisdom of the ages, the unrecorded inheritance of humanity. Its vast scheme of cosmic and human evolution furnishes all true seekers with the symbolic alphabet necessary to interpret their recurrent visions as well as the universal framework and metaphysical vocabulary, drawn from many mystics and seers, which enable them to communicate their own intuitive perceptions. All authentic mystical writings are enriched by the alchemical flavour of Theosophical thought. Theosophy is an integrated system of fundamental verities taught by Initiates and Adepts across millennia. It is the Philosophia Perennis, the philosophy of human perfectibility, the science of spirituality and the religion of responsibility. It is the primeval fount of myriad religious systems as well as the hidden essence and esoteric wisdom of each. Man, an immortal monad, has been able to preserve this sacred heritage through the sacrificial efforts of enlightened and compassionate individuals, or Bodhisattvas, who constitute an ancient Brotherhood. They quietly assist in the ethical evolution and spiritual development of the whole of humanity. Theosophia is Divine Wisdom, transmitted and verified over aeons by the sages who belong to this secret Brotherhood.

This work reviews the evidence from anthropology and paleontology to support the claim of evolution science that man derives from an animal ancestor and finds both the evidence and the theses of science to be faulty and riddled with contradictions and unwarranted logical leaps of faith. Likewise, many of the tenets of creationist Christianity are found to be illogical and based upon literal readings of allegorical teachings. Both sides in the current Evolution vs. Intelligent design debate are found to be seriously deficient in truth content; this work presents a third alternative point of view, one that is both rational and religious: the possibility that Man has both an animal and a divine origin. The pendulum of thought oscillates between extremes. Having now finally emancipated herself from the shackles of theology, Science has embraced the opposite fallacy; and in the attempt to interpret Nature on purely materialistic lines, she has built up that most extravagant theory of the ages - the derivation of man from a ferocious and brutal ape. So rooted has this doctrine, in one form or another, now become, that the most Herculean efforts will be needed to bring about its final rejection. The Darwinian anthropology is the incubus of the ethnologist, a sturdy child of modern Materialism, which has grown up and acquired increasing vigour, as the ineptitude of the theological legend of Man's "creation" became more and more apparent. It has thriven on account of the strange delusion that - as a scientist of repute puts it - "All hypotheses and theories with respect to the rise of man can be reduced to two (the Evolutionist and the Biblical exoteric account). There is no other hypothesis conceivable"! The anthropology of the secret volumes is, however, the best possible answer to such a worthless contention.

Raghavan Iyer founded HERMES, a journal of Theosophical Wisdom, just prior to the beginning of the 1975 Cycle in Santa Barbara, California, as one of several vehicles for the current behind the 7th Century Impulsion. In that journal, he illustrated the ways in which Mahatmas have worked and continue to work in the world. In the article, "The Seventh Impulsion: 1963-2000", he made clear that the Mahatmic impulsions were concentrated in the last quarter of each century, but that preparations for them occurred earlier, and that their reverberations lasted far beyond the conclusion of each quarter-century cycle in an unfailing continuous stream. Near the beginning of 1976, after a year of guiding the golden HERMES current, Professor Iyer determined that those thinkers and teachers most involved in the Seven Century Plan should be honored through writings - called the Teacher Articles - that described the hidden current behind their lives and the timeless context for their work within the cycles of time. All of the Teacher Articles were written from a Theosophical perspective based, in large part, upon the philosophy expounded in H. P. Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine. This collection of essays contains those articles that first appeared in HERMES as an exploration of the Seven Century Plan.

The purpose of this book is to bring together in a convenient and coherent form the many HERMES articles written by Prof. Iyer that dealt with this subject. In truth, meditation and self-study represent two sides of one human activity, something analogous to the operation of the systolic and diastolic movements of the human heart. The one is the centrifugal movement of consciousness expanding to Universals beyond the limits of Self; the other is the centripetal movement focusing with laser-like precision upon the particulars within the limits of Self. They represent roughly the sub-principles of Buddhi and Manas acting within the incarnated Manasic principle; for the spiritual aspirant they should - in time - become as natural as breathing in and breathing out. These two aspects of the inbreathing and outbreathing within the neophyte's consciousness are dealt with in the three treatises of The Voice of the Silence, as well as in Prof. Iyer's seminal article, Meditation and Self-Study.

The title of this book, Wisdom in Action, indicates the slightly different emphasis in this second volume of Raghavan Iyer's HERMES essays than the fi rst volume, The Dawning of Wisdom. In truth, these jeweled essays in Buddhi Yoga could be gathered together into any number of confi gurations simply because the writings themselves are so multifaceted and universal in scope. As they embody Universal Good, so too they lend themselves to the purposes of the highest good under whatever name or form. The constant, underlying theme of all these essays is the crucial need for unconditional devotion to Universal Good as a prerequisite for traveling on the spiritual Path. There is simply nothing else that can serve as a substitute for the highest of noble motives for living the spiritual life. But these writings also bear upon the crucial and thorny problem of translating theoria into praxis, and they shed a pristine light upon the obstacles and diffi culties encountered by every aspirant who self-consciously chooses to tread the Path of Renunciation.

The spiritually penetrating essays in this volume were written for the expressed purpose of shedding the pristine light of universal Theosophy on the path of spiritual self-regeneration in the service of humanity.The Theosophical philosophy is predicated on the ageless truth that divine wisdom exists, and that wise beings exist who dynamically embody it in world history; that sages and seers still grace the globe and continually oversee the spiritual, mental and physical evolution of man and nature. The secret Society of Sages that guides human progress periodically sends forth one of their own to sound afresh the Divine Philosophy and exemplify the spiritual life in all its richness and mystery. Such an enlightened spiritual teacher articulates eternal but forgotten truths in ingenious ways, adopting modes that inspire the mind, release soul perception, and cut through the miasma of an age.The wide-ranging articles in this volume span the spectrum of human thought from the metaphysical to the mystical, the ethical to the psychological, the spiritual to the material. They reveal the fundamental basis of religion, philosophy and science. The assimilation of these essays turns us back upon ourselves and releases that laser-like insight that allows us to increasingly discern the true, the good, and the beautiful in all religious teachings, philosophical musings, and scientific discoveries. When carefully meditated upon and skillfully applied to the realm of self-chosen duties, they purify the mind, cleanse the heart, and uplift the human condition.

Any attempt to explain the mysterious connections between consciousness and matter, and self-consciousness in particular, necessarily involves much complexity. Because all levels of relative reality are present here and now, the human being embodies the whole hierarchy of the cosmos: a microcosm of the macrocosm, to use an insightful Renaissance expression. Besides the physical human body, there is the dynamic structural plan of that body (called the 'astral body'), the desire nature, the life force that permeates all living creatures, consciousness involved in sense perception and practical operations, consciousness capable of universal thought and awareness, and pure consciousness manifest in pristine intuition. Above these six principles of human nature broods the luminous spirit called the Atman. Many people are seldom aware of anything more in themselves than the first five of these principles, although many also have intuitive glimpses of universal understanding, often as transcendent experiences which cannot be sustained. Because understanding cannot be separated from experience, and experience cannot be divorced from the way we live, think, feel and have our being, various spiritual traditions have offered practices to nurture these inner awakenings to our higher natures and to a greater awareness of spiritual reality. Theosophy connects together how we live our lives, what we think and how we focus our attention, the bold exploration of our inner natures, how we react to what comes to us (karma), and how we can build depth of awareness across lifetimes, with Enlightenment. Theosophy, therefore, connects ethics and action, including both physical action in the world and the action of our own thoughts. Where we are ignorant of all the dimensions of our circumstances-and, short of Enlightenment, we are all ignorant-motive for thought and action is fundamental for altering one's karmic trajectory and future incarnations. The selections from The Secret Doctrine in this book are gathered with a focus on the consciousness exhibited in Nature, its origin and destiny, and on human self-consciousness, in particular. This book therefore explores one vital current in the Ocean of Wisdom that is Theosophy. A thoughtful and persistent reading of these texts will radically transform one's understanding of the unity of self-consciousness and the world around us, and of one's place in the greater scheme of things.

The remarkable essays in this volume were written for the expressed purpose of helping both the newcomer to spiritual thinking as well as the skilled practitioner to see the everyday objects - from the wind and ships to deserts and lakes - and subjects - from dogs and ravens to dolphins and whales - surrounding us as concrete embodiments and living symbols of the fundamental spiritual Essence from which everything has evolved. These universal symbols are not just accidental mental constructs but are living realities that not only point to spiritual dimensions far beyond themselves but profoundly embody those spiritual realities. Learning to see the world around us afresh in the light of its spiritual dimension reorients us to taking up again the age-old task of treading the Path and aids us in activating our higher spiritual capacities which, when awakened, shed the pristine light of universal Theosophy on the path of spiritual self-regeneration in the service of humanity. The 28 wide-ranging articles in this volume span a wide spectrum of human thought: from the Tetraktys to the Cross, from the Altar to the Mirror, from the Pentagram to the Dodecahedron, from the Dog to the Dwarf, from the Heart to the Fool; indeed, from Shamballa to Paradise. These essays reveal the fundamental religious, philosophical, and scientific aspects to the most mundane and most refined realities of our common, everyday world. Both the serious reflection upon and casual reading of these essays is a joyous expedition through the all-too-common truncated perceptions we have of our world to a higher level of awareness of the myriad ways in which the life of the universal Spirit is made manifest.