Future Events Can be Perceived as They
Cast Their Shadow Over the Present Moment
Carlos Cardoso Aveline
* One’s ability to learn depends on both concentration and open-mindedness. Horizons are wide in theosophy. The center of the pilgrim’s consciousness is established in the Universal Truth, and understanding the universe is a form of self-knowledge.
* Just like in martial arts, decisive moments in every aspect of life need calm and deserve it. Complete vigilance takes place in the absence of personal anxiety. The center of a moving wheel does not need to oscillate upwards or downwards. Only the periphery does so.
* The center of the wheel of life is present in one’s heart. As the karmic fever in a materialistic civilization seems to get higher and the events accelerate, inner peace symmetrically expands and deepens in the consciousness of those who observe the process from the point of view of immortal wisdom. Silence is bliss: insights are noiseless.
* Detachment from the whole world of lower selves is desirable. Freedom from undue personal attachments can be attained if one is not deceived by mere words and appearance. In experiencing the bliss of silence, we see truth. In order to use words properly, one must be independent from them and use them as means to express the truth we see in wordlessly direct perception. Thought may induce one to see the truth; it can confirm and improve its vision; yet it cannot replace it.
* Helena Blavatsky and the Eastern Masters of the wisdom made it clear in various writings that getting acquainted with the rationale of esoteric philosophy is of scarce value in the absence of the corresponding feeling of responsibility. The purpose of knowing something of the long-term History of Life in our globe – and other globes as well – is to perceive and live up to one’s co-responsibility for its present and future evolution. The point in studying the Law of Karma and Reincarnation is to be able to act in wise ways and sow what we would like to harvest.
* Both immediate action and long-term life deserve calm attention. If we concentrate too much of our efforts in the present circumstances, we become unable to learn from the past and cannot foresee and prepare the future. Our action here and now must take into consideration the eternal time.
* Future events can be perceived as they cast their shadow over the present moment. However, one must have the eyes to see the trends of Karma. The voice of our conscience speaks from many different lines of time. The symmetric energies with which we perceive past and future come together in the present instant so that we can better perform actions that are as right as possible. One ought to live in the present in a way that is in harmony with his view of the future.
* Each time a civilization ceases to be useful to the inner growth of human souls, it gradually dies and disappears, making it possible for new cycles of social Karma to take place on the basis of the lessons learned.
* The end of soul-less collective structures is sometimes an ugly thing to see. Examples are various in History. And yet it also brings about a blissful liberation from delusion, and produces a deep sense of relief in human spirit.
Forgetting Oneself
* Vanity and despondency are two symmetrical obstacles along the path to wisdom.
* The loss of hope or enthusiasm may find a false compensation in pride and vanity. The idea that one’s personal efforts are of decisive importance is often a subconscious way to escape from despondency. Vanity, of course, leads to hopelessness. The two opposites feed one another. Their root is selfishness, which derives from the absence of self-knowledge.
* Learning the truth liberates the pilgrim. Knowledge of oneself is the knowledge of one’s own higher, impersonal, immortal self. As the student of theosophy develops an effective contact with his spiritual soul, he “forgets” his lower self, in the sense of leaving aside any exaggerated attachment to it. By “forgetting” the little and narrow world of the lower self, one “remembers” of more valuable things, and the lower self starts working in a decisive way for a higher purpose.
The Implosion and the Renewal
* Many a large structure now fails, falls and invisibly ceases to exist, while still pretending to keep business as usual in a “normal” world. This is the right time to build internally new and healthy structures, while paying no excessive attention to external forms. That which is new can look like old to naive people. Many do not see we are living a beginning, much more than an end. Having left illusions aside, the builders are using the best material available from past experience and from a correct view of the future. Those who obey to appearance are not quite alive; however, they can still be awakened as the collective Karma deepens its change.
Gabriel Tarde on Sociology
* French thinker Gabriel Tarde wrote: “Sociology will be a Psychology, or it will be nothing.”[1] The statement corresponds to an axiom in theosophy, as it expresses the fact that soulless and materialistic forms of Sociology are condemned to the dustbin of History. Psychology is the science of the soul. Helena Blavatsky taught that there is no separation between individual Karma and collective Karma or Destiny.
* Individual and social thinking interact all the time. An ethical awareness of life occurs simultaneously in individuals, interpersonal relationships, small groups and communities – local, national and global. A country is doomed to irrelevance if people cannot listen to their souls. Nations are blessed as long as their citizens act and think under the light of their own spiritual selves.
NOTE:
[1] Mr. Gabriel Tarde was born on 12 March 1843. This sentence is quoted in the book “Psicologia Grupal”, by Luiz Carlos Osorio, ArtMed, São Paulo, Brazil, 2007, see p. 8.
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“Thoughts Along the Road – 37” was published as an independent text on 24 October 2019. An initial version of it, with no indication as to the name of the author, is included in “The Aquarian Theosophist”, August 2017 edition, pp. 8-9. A few short notes written by the same author and anonymously published in that edition of “The Aquarian” were added to form the article.
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