[Theosophischen Lehren]
Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl[1]
“The great truth of knowing the cause of all suffering, O Bikkshus, is not a traditional teaching, but what caught my attention; the realization awoke in me; wisdom revealed itself in me; the light appeared to myself.” (Gautama Buddha.)
“I am the way, the truth, and the life.” (St. John. xv. 6.)
Theosophy in the true sense of the word is the divine self-knowledge in man, the self-knowledge of truth in man and in everything in nature. To know the truth one does not need to roam far and search in many books; one need only find it within oneself, and man finds it by it being revealed in himself. This power of knowledge is true life, its possessor the God-man, who redeems mankind from the night of ignorance and error by celebrating his resurrection in all mankind and in the individual; it is the light by the revelation of which Gautama became a Buddha, i.e., became an Enlightened One, and without which there can be no true religion, true philosophy, true knowledge, and true science. Theosophy, or divine wisdom, is therefore not a system of articles of faith or a new philosophy. It is higher than all philosophy, since it is not based on speculation, but on Self-knowledge. It is the power by which man, if he has a love of truth, can recognize the truth within himself. Its purpose is not to convert people from one ecclesiastical system to another, but it is a divine light that serves to enable each to find the truth contained within himself and in the religious system which he follows, or is set out in his philosophy. It is not a work of man and no more than the light of the sun can be invented, created or produced by anyone, and whoever does not possess it himself will look for it in vain even in the best books. But whoever possesses wisdom recognizes it in everything that surrounds him, and just as the light of the sun penetrates all of nature and can be perceived by anyone who has the necessary abilities, so can the light of divine wisdom which enlightens the soul of man be perceived by everyone, unless he prevents himself from seeing the same thing by his own errors, perverted notions and desires.
Thomas von Kempis says: “Blessed is he whom wisdom teaches by itself, not through ephemeral images and words, but as it is in its essence.” If every human being would listen to the voice of divine reason at work in him and the eternal, letting the truth be revealed within him, no one would need to read books. Those who have their own knowledge need no articles of faith and no speculative philosophy. But since everyone who has attained this divine self-knowledge is an Adept, and there are only a few Adepts, while the vast majority of people cling to prejudices and errors, some inherited and some acquired, the vast majority of humanity needs theosophical teachings, not to let a light shine in them which only the truth can produce, but to remove the obstacles that stand in the way of this self-knowledge of truth; and this is done by awakening in man the belief in a higher existence, by teaching him a higher than the modern “rationalistic” world-view, and this higher world-view is to be found in the classical writings of antiquity, but especially in the Eastern religious philosophies, from which the Christian Bible also originates.
It is a great mistake to confuse pure theosophy or divine Self-knowledge with the teachings arising from it, or even with the opinions and views of individual members of the “theosophical society.” The man who has become natural, who is penetrated by the light of the knowledge of God, knows God [the Monad], himself and all of nature; that which is recognized in him is above all theory and speculation; God in him knows himself and needs no proofs and conclusions to know what he himself is. Theosophical teachings, on the other hand, even if they spring from the self-knowledge of the one who teaches them, are nonetheless mere theories for those who do not have this as their own perception and self-knowledge, and they remain as theories for everyone until they have proven their truth through their own experience confirmed finding. But as far as the opinions of the individual members of the “theosophical society” are concerned, they must differ because this society is not bound by any articles of faith, and consists not merely of those who have already found the truth, but for the most part of those who seek it.
The orthodox Christian who has come to know the “light of the world” in his own heart; the real Buddhist, who through this light becomes a Buddha, i.e., has become an “enlightened one”; the brahmin who in truth has found refuge in Brahma alone, all these have no need of theosophical speculation or theory; for they recognize the truth, and whoever recognizes the truth needs no other teacher. Anyone who has already awakened to true divine life and has found immortality within himself does not need to be told that there is such an awakening, or to form an opinion as to whether man can be immortal or not.
But of such true believers who have the knowledge of God there are very few nowadays. The majority of the pious cling to the externals of their religion, cling to the letter and thereby forget the spirit, and, by over-preserving form, prevent themselves from penetrating the mystery which is hidden in form, and from attaining power, which is symbolized by external images and allegories; while the enemies of the truth, who can only see the outer robe of any religion, reject religion because they are unable to grasp the core of it. Modern philosophy considers the satisfaction of scientific curiosity to be the highest degree of intellectual knowledge; our “rational” philosophers rack their brains over things which really do not concern them, since what they wish to know they neither are nor strive to become; but it goes without saying that real self-knowledge can only come from what one is and possesses, and not from what one has no experience of. As for the natural sciences, they serve their purpose when they deal with the interrelationships of things that we find in this world of appearances that we call “nature.” However, if “science” presumes to judge things that lie outside the range of its cognitive ability, or even denies what it cannot see or understand, then it is no longer science, but folly.
Theosophical teachings lay before us the truth as it was revealed to those in whom it was revealed; but just as the most detailed theory about the nature of light and its vibrations could not replace our sight if we were blind, so also the sublime teachings of wisdom cannot give self-knowledge to those who do not have the feeling for truth themselves. Nor does their understanding include what is called “modern education,” which consists in possessing a jumble of opinions based on belief in authority. “The more learned, the more wrong” is a proverb that we see confirmed every day. As the miser is attached to his beggar, the maid to her finery, the fool to his delusions, so the modern philosopher is bound by his theories and hypotheses, which he has either worked out in his imagination or others who have invented them, prays without thinking that what relatively a few years ago paraded before the world as science has today become the laughing stock of children, and that perhaps what is not yet understandable today will form the basis of science for centuries to come.
In order to attain pure Theosophy, no learning is required, nothing other than knowledge, i.e., the influx of the light of the Sun of Eternal Wisdom, or in other words, the conception of the Holy Spirit in the human soul; and for that conception to take place, the soul must be undefiled from base desires, pure from self-conceit, self-will, and fanaticism. Those who prefer their fantasies instead of the knowledge of the truth, live in their fantasies and close their hearts to the light of divine wisdom. From eternity this light has shone in the dark, but the dark cannot see the light; the light can only be comprehended by luminous beings; wherever it reveals itself, there darkness ceases to be. The Light of Eternal Truth is everywhere, both within ourselves and outside of our bodies; everything we see in nature is a revelation of truth, but until we have discovered the truth within ourselves, we cannot discover it in external things. As long as we ourselves want to play a role in the shadow play of this world as unsubstantial shadows without inner strength and consider ourselves to be something great and special, then we ourselves will consist of the darkness which cannot recognize the light; only when we have recognized our own personality as nothing other than a soap bubble which shines in iridescent colors for a while and then bursts at the end, only then can the light which gives all things their color come into us and we may attain true knowledge through the light.
The giving up one’s apparent self in order to attain one’s true Self, the sacrifice of humanity within us on the altar of the divinity that penetrates us without our knowing it, and all in all fulfilled, leaving all personal desires and wishes, to take refuge in eternal ideals alone, and to let this come to fruition in oneself, is the basis of every true religion and philosophy, and the necessary advice for this is found in the Bible and in the writings of the saints, and especially plain and clear in the Bhagavad Gītā and in the ancient sacred books.
Anyone who recognizes the deep meaning of the religious mysteries contained in the Bible does not need to turn to the sages of antiquity to find the way to divine self-knowledge; but anyone who is able to judge the current state of culture in Europe will have to admit that the spiritual understanding of the Bible among the educated has fallen so much today that it can only be seen as a book full of fables and allegories, as a “Jewish history,” which is regarded as a moral teaching no longer suitable for the present age. To bring the things dealt with in the Bible closer to common sense, thereby soaring up to a higher world-view and making one’s mind accessible to divine enlightenment, is not sufficient for the interpretation of those who have lost the key to the mysteries, whose guardians they are appointed to serve, the enlightenments of those for whom religion is not just an emotional rapture, but an exact science confirmed by experience. Comparative theology is a science which is still almost unknown in Germany, and yet anyone who does not yet have any knowledge of his own can only discover this truth for himself by comparing the various forms in which one and the same truth is offered to him.
There is but one eternal truth, and it is presented in different forms in different religious systems. A comparison of these various forms in which truth is clothed serves to learn to distinguish between what is of forms and what is of truth itself, and, freeing ourselves from the delusion of forms, can enable the spirit of truth to reveal itself to us.
But if we want to get to know the true spirit that lives in the Vedas and Purāṇas, in the Upanishads, the Mahābhārata and the Bhagavad Gītā, we will hardly turn to the European philologists, who will probably give us a translation of words, but can not give a rendering of the meaning of those verses as long as they are not able to understand the meaning of them within themselves. A science or philosophy without wisdom, i.e., without the recognition of the truth underlying all knowledge, is an empty appearance, and so the explanation of writings, the secret or deeper meaning of which the explainer does not understand, is a threshing of empty straw, like the nonsensical commentaries appended to most translations of Oriental works serve to prove.
True theosophy encompasses the entire field of knowledge. When God [the Higher Self] recognizes himself in man and thereby man recognizes himself in God, he recognizes himself as the entire and the whole universe as a manifestation of his spiritual nature. Theosophical teachings, therefore, pertain to the knowledge of the truth in all things apart from their outward appearances, the observation of which belongs to the province of the science of appearances. They teach us that the real and essential man is not the limited appearance under which he presents himself to our senses, but a much higher being, which reveals itself in this appearance, which represents the “person,” but whose existence is not limited to the existence of this personal appearance, which in its innermost being is immortal and is able to become aware of this immortality. They teach us that the purpose of human existence is: that he may come to the self-knowledge of his true divine nature, and that until he has attained this self-knowledge he must keep playing a new role in this world of appearances, attracted by his desires to life until he has finally found his “I,” the Redeemer, the God-man in himself and has thereby attained self-knowledge and freedom. They teach us that the laws of karma, divine justice, are immutable, that what man sows he will reap in this life or in the life to come, and that there is no other forgiveness of sins than that which occurs when man, through union with his divine nature, rids himself and is freed of his own deceptive, sinful “self.”
If man were to recognize God in himself and in all of mankind, he would attain greater self-consciousness; a recognition of his true human dignity. The world raves about reformers who want to improve the tree of mankind through external pruning. Europe is threatened by wars and the friends of peace are trying in vain to abolish armed peace, which is just as bad as unarmed war, since this is what true knowledge is all about. Capital is at odds with labor because both sides are primarily concerned with their own interests. A horde of unreasonable people, under the mask of religion and humanity, gives free rein to their passions and misuses the name of Christianity for purposes which are quite contrary to the spirit of it. There is self-importance and selfishness everywhere, and greed for that which is ephemeral and has no real value. If the majority of people had even a glimpse of their own higher nature, then all the evils which one is now trying to eliminate by force in vain would cease of their own accord, since the root from which they spring would be taken away from them; the recognition of universal human rights would take the place of the prerogatives of nations and classes, and we could form an empire of the United States of Europe, an empire of peace in which true progress could flourish. Nothing prevents us from doing so other than the perversity of our own intuition, as a result of which we see nothing but our own deceptive transitory self and what relates to it.
There is no salvation for mankind, no other redemption than in God, but the God who alone can set us free is not the God of popular theology, who exists outside the world, acting at his whim and moving through petitions, is allowed to act according to human will. Just as every tree, every animal is nourished and maintained only by that power which works as life within its own organism, so too can man only achieve true cognition, the consciousness of his human-ness and achieve divine dignity.
This higher self-consciousness cannot be awakened by a forced religious upbringing, which consists in the inculcation of misunderstood dogmas and the outward observance of ecclesiastical customs. Nor by the favoring of an ecclesiastical order which made Christ a minister in order to serve worldly interests, nor by any education which makes man dependent by pointing him to his salvation in anything other than that in himself to seek the active power of the divine spirit. But once man has come to search within himself for freedom from everything that degrades him, and get to know and master his own world, then he will also discover in his soul dormant powers, of which modern science knows nothing, but are only awakened to make him, the worm of the earth, a ruler of heaven and earth, to whom his whole nature is subject.
Ever since the spread of the “Theosophical Society” in India, a multitude of the most precious literary treasures relating to cosmology, anthropology, etc., which were formerly hidden from the Europeans, have opened up to our research; for the Indians, more than others, follow the principle that holy and august things are not to be approached otherwise than with a distinguished mind, and it is easy to understand that the Brahmins looked with a suspicious eye at the profanation and defacement of their holy books by unholy and skeptical “Orientalists.” While the first tenet and sole article of faith of this union is the equality of all men before the throne of truth, so too the consequent brotherhood between East and West has served to break down the barriers which centuries of intolerance and bigotry had built between them, and while the modern ecclesiastical culture of Europe, which has almost ceased to exist as a matter of fashion, is crumbling, a new lamp is kindled for us in the East, spreading a light which knows no sectarian aspirations, which can suffice for Christians and Jews, Brahmins, Buddhists, that of the light of truth, the knowledge of which, is wisdom.
Note
[1] Theosophical Teachings [Theosophischen Lehren. Franz Hartmann, M.D. Lotusblüten 1, no. 5 (February 1893), 87-105. {This article was reformatted from the original, but with the content unchanged other than fixing minor typos. Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl, ©2025}