theosophy

Life is about trying to find our ways back to our one shared soul. When we__e looking out at the stars, we__e looking into ourselves.

Ancient philosophers and spiritual teachers were explorers. They wanted us to be as well. They thought we should understand this physical world, but not get stuck here. For thousands of years we have shared their insights, over-analyzed and repeated their words; quoting and re-translating until all meaning has been lost. These great minds, great souls, great beings sought to be jumping off points, not merely the originators of emptied out and desiccated clichés. They wanted to be doorways, not doorstops.

Broken hearts show us we__e grown out of one stage, by ripping us wide open for the next.We__e forced to choose what we do with all that pain: turn it against ourselves, aim it at someone else, or tap all that power and reach higher.

The most fundamental, basic need in magick, is the development of the will. The magus says, __ will, and not heaven nor hell can stop me._ It is in this forming and growing, creating, of the will, where heaven and hell learns to follow the will of the magus. A person who wants to develop the soul must never say, __aybe_ or __f I see a sign_ because the master creates his own signs. If you need a star to align in front of a tree because that to you would be a sign, then you make the star align with the tree, if not in this world, in the other worlds and in the other dimensions. There are no __fs_ and there are no __aybes_ there are only __ wills._ This is the basic platform of magick, and most people never get past it, because not all can.

Much is imagination, more is truth, but which is which I scarcely can tell myself.

Forgiveness doesn__ make one person better, or the other guy smaller. Forgiving is just letting go. It__ turning back toward being what we really are.

That was the trouble with formulating a system: what could you do but repeat it?

What does it mean to be the master of your own soul, the captain of your own mind? It means that you keep the final say on what you think, feel and do. No one fearful thought can overtake you, no one doubtful feeling can overthrow you from your path, no one memory of pain can turn you away from what is meant for you now; because when the waves of doubt come and the winds of fear blow and the rains of pain fall and feel like they're stinging you again_ you say no. You say no. You say that you will be the master of your vessel and you will tell your mind to stay the course, you will tell your heart to stay fixed, you will tell your skin that it knows the touch of silken balms. You are the captain of your own ship.

Perhaps a human simply falls back into himself upon the disintegration of his physical body, and continues to take form within the self of himself, simply returning from whence he came.

I believe that we are not determined either to heaven or to hell, through our actions here on Earth. On the contrary, I believe that we come either from heaven or from hell, prior to this life, and we carry our prior origins inside of us, at all times. People just go back to where they originally came from. And they live in this life as a result of where they once were. Of course, we have the capacities to develop and to build and to create more, while we are here, and perhaps even to change the course of our destinies, but I believe that the soul matter of individuals, are varied and are not of all the same origins.

As researchers of the paranormal, we must understand there are ways to change the rhythm of time within us, ways to change the beat. These ways have been known since the beginnings of civilization, and possibly much earlier. And these ways would require no more effort than simply recognizing the secret rhythms of things. Moreover, we may learn to beat with them and begin to perceive a different kind of space, and ultimately discover an altogether different conception of reality_

The mystical trend of our time, which shows itself particularly in the rampant growth of the so-called Theosophy and Spiritualism, is for me no more than a symptom of weakness and confusion. Since our inner experiences consist of reproductions, and combinations of sensory impressions, the concept of a soul without a body seem to me to be empty and devoid of meaning. - Albert Einstein, letter of February 5, 1921

Sometimes I wish I could feel more painso I could touch that much more beauty.

Paulette awoke with an ache in her heart, a grinding in her gut. If there really was a God, why would He have let anyone put a child through that? _She had survived, but at what cost? She was an itinerant professor, living in her head, not her heart. She had broken away, but abandoned her sister; hadn__ contacted her family in years.Paulette wondered what she was looking for in these weekend workshops. Absolution wasn__ on the curriculum. What could she possibly hope to accomplish? To be a healer you need to connect with people. You need to touch, and let yourself be touched. And not just with your hands.Watching these nurses, she envied them their friendships. Here were real buddies truly caring about each other, taking jabs, sharing private jokes and fears. She__ never had that. Even witnessing it from across a room, or a yard, only made her feel that much more lonely.She got along with people well enough. Agreed with whatever they said, watched their pets, helped them move from one apartment to another. But no one really knew her.Paulette had never been flush with self-confidence. People took that as humility, but humility isn__ painful and crippling. She hadn__ yet learned that humble and self-destructive aren__ the same thing at all. They__e not even on the same team.And now here she was at a workshop for healers. Had she come here to heal; or to be healed?It was one of those warm, charming days that write poems about themselves, and then settle these very softly into your mind. Paulette sensed what felt like a rain-laced breeze stirring her soul; sodden, and yet beautiful; laden with both the dismal, and the promising.- From __he Gardens of Ailana_, a fiction largely based around adults still traumatized by having been abused as children, in the name of their parents_ religion.

Harvey wanted to dive into his ugliness; he intentionally reached for those long hours of soul desolation. He waited. He paced, ready to face down whatever was to come.Paulette__, though, busted loose uninvited, catching her completely off guard when she was already hurting, feeling crumbled, and vulnerable. When all she really wanted was some quiet gentle feelings for a change. A few flowers. Some sunshine. A way out of all that inner torment for even just a moment.Had she had brought only nastiness out of her childhood? Hadn__ there been anything sweet she could remember instead?As she wandered back to her cabin, searching for even a single fond memory, light faded everywhere around her.Aw, c__on, she thought. Everyone had some happy childhood memories. She had to have at least a couple.How about the coloring? Children enjoy coloring; how about that? She__ spent hours and days on her art. It was as close as she could remember to having her Mamma stand over her with anything even remotely resembling approval. Her books and comics could be tales of Jesus, but coloring books had to be Old Testament because __o child__ impure hand could touch a crayon to the sweet beautiful face of our beloved Lord and savior Christ Jesus.__o the little girl had scrunched down over Daniel in the lion__ den. Samson screaming in rage, pain, and terror as they blinded him with daggers and torches. The redder she made the flowing wounds of a man of God shot full of arrows, the richer the flames around those three men being burned in an iron box, the longer Mamma let her stay out of that closet.- From __he Gardens of Ailana

Pronto me di cuenta de que estas enseñanzas podían ser un consuelo sólo para los que las aceptaran literalmente y que creyeran ser la verdad. Si fueran, como para mí, en parte bella literatura, parte símbolos intrincados; un intento de explicación mitológica del mundo, uno podría instruirse y apreciarlas, pero uno no aprendería la forma de vivir y sacar fuerza de ellas.

Heaven_ is actually a country that we build within ourselves, or that we continue to build. We come from it, and we harvest materials for it while we are here, doing this through sharing our talents with others, and through being dedicated to our relationships in life, through loving others and through strengthening our ability to believe, through our faith. What is faith? Faith is the strength to believe even when believing is a very difficult thing to do! I think that faith is acquired here in this world, because there is no need to have faith in our eternal countries. But here, as we acquire faith in the midst of our hardships, we are begetting unto our eternal countries the strong glue that holds some buildings and some temples together.

It is an occult law moreover, that no man can rise superior to his individual failings without lifting, be it ever so little, the whole body of which he is an integral part. In the same way no one can sin, nor suffer the effects of sin, alone. In reality, there is no such thing as 'separateness' and the nearest approach to that selfish state which the laws of life permit is in the intent or motive.