"The flashing gaze of the seers has penetrated into the very kernel of matter, and recorded the souls of things there, where an ordinary profane, however learned, would have perceived but the external work of form." (SD 1:272)

The term the secret doctrine consists of three words. The word the signifies that there is but one secret doctrine - the one and only secret doctrine, not a secret doctrine, which would mean one among many. Though there may be many doctrines and views about things, there is but one heart-doctrine that describes and explains the events of our grand cosmos as they really are. A heart-doctrine which is beyond ordinary words and conceptualizations. Such a description can only be given and fully understood by those who have become fully at one with all aspects – material, psychical, and spiritual of themselves and the cosmos.

It would be quite presumptuous for us as individuals or as society to claim to possess that doctrine, and even more that we would be the only custodians of it. Speaking of myself, and I suppose most of us, I regard myself as a humble and beginning student of the view facets of such a doctrine which are openly available to us in books, and within the still very limited capabilities of my mind. To say this is no false humility; it is stating a fact. What can we say about this secret doctrine or tradition of which we, however learned or sensitive, could at best perceive the external work of form?

What does it mean to say secret? Would it not be more satisfying in our days of literacy and openness to teach this doctrine openly? Or is there a caste of priests or initiates who wish to keep the secret teaching for themselves, and out of the hands of the profane, and thus exert power over the masses?

Not all of that doctrine is secret. In fact as much of it is has through the ages been revealed to humankind as humankind could and can bear and understand. One of the most crucial teachings of all that is in store for humankind as its expanding mental and spiritual evolution proceeds is that of the Hierarchy of Compassion, of which we humans form the lowermost link on earth. Hierarchy of Compassion literally means guidance by holy beings who are unselfishly inspired by compassion for those who aspire to unfold their inborn spiritual qualities. It would certainly be no mark of compassion and unselfishness to cherish secrets to distinguish oneself or exert influence overruling the free will of others.

The real reason of occult or esoteric secrecy is that we, as we live in our world of imperfect perceptions, ignorance about the real nature of things, and often fantastic theories would not be able to bear the sight of Truth. We would be blinded by that Light, we would be confused and led astray, unable to recognize the real nature of what our understanding can cope with at this moment. Moreover the secret knowledge, or the little we could grasp of it, would be most dangerous in our hands. It is, for example, hardly a century ago since the unity of matter and energy was revealed to the world, and took us less than 50 years to make a most fearful weapon of destruction and suppression for ourselves – humanity and other living beings. Therefore the real custodians of the secret doctrine or the esoteric tradition are those who have developed further than average humanity, who understand why the teachings must be secret and are entirely free of any promptings of selfish impulsiveness to reveal what would be harmful.

Now, how can we know that there exists a secret doctrine, if we have no admission to it? Apart from the fact that all over the world we find hints of the existence of such a doctrine – given to us by those who (supposedly) know more than we do – it is a matter of sheer logical necessity. Things are as they are. But our comprehension is always growing. We have not yet reached full comprehension. There is no mundane science which has fully mastered the topic it studies. Our theories and judgements develop, deepen, fail, perish, perhaps revive and extend – we make steps back and forward as our information grows, and often we have to admit that old theories appear most incomplete or even ridiculous as new facts surface. So we know that we do not know everything. We even are aware that we know nothing in its real essence. At the same time we are aware that our understanding has been expanding throughout the ages, and intuitively we know that our understanding is moving and deepening towards a particular attractor, which is Truth itself. In our searching – scientifically, philosophically and through silent meditation – we ponder ideas, accept some, reject others, and again others we leave aside for the time being because they appear attractive, but we do not yet have the clarity of mind and sufficiency of information to either reject or accept them.

Moreover among our peoples in our centuries, knowledge, as far as it goes, is almost confined to the limits of physical matter. But physical matter is no more than the top of the iceberg, the coarsest expression of the consciousness-live-force behind or rather within it. The clairvoyance, clearaudience, etc. with which many of us are equipped, and which has gained popularity in our “New Age” is – in its generality - even more unreliable and potentially harmful than physical knowledge, though it gives us a hint that there is more in the universe that physical matter alone.

If we want to know ultimate truth we must study beyond the world of phenomena, and enter the world of noumena, the essential, original divine ideas behind them. We must understand the seen and unseen powers in the universe and in ourselves, their spiritual essence, and their unity and connection. If we gain such knowledge we become as powerful as the gods themselves, and that is just were the gods want us to protect us against for the time being.

In most religious doctrines in the world the occidental being one of the few exceptions - sentient existence has a purpose. This purpose is for humans to become fully human, for animals to become a fully perfected animal, and likewise for plants and other beings. The task of the hierarchy of compassion is to help all kingdoms of nature, all individuals – not by removing our self-invoked difficulties – but by showing us that part of our path which lies just in front of us. It is for us to grasp the opportunity of which we feel intuitively that it opens before us, or to ignore it and follow the more apparent attractions of old attachments. Finally it is against nature to haunt illusions, so sooner or later we will all turn to the gods and listen to them, follow their advice and wish to become one of them. Then we will always be helped, both as individuals and as human community.

The existence of secret knowledge that is our heritage since the beginning of human self-awareness was proclaimed by Plato, Pythagoras and other Greeks, the ancient Egyptians. The peoples of India and surrounding lands spoke of the guptavidya, the secret knowing, and the peoples of the pre-Columbian Americas did so in their own terms. Though it was revered as the utmost honor to be admitted to the Mysteries as entrance to that beyond, it has been greatly forgotten in our dark days. What remained of it after the admission to the Schools could no longer be permitted, are only incomplete remnants or deformations which by sound minds can only be ridiculed. Nevertheless for the true seeker very much is available in our days. Renewed efforts have been done to help the relatively few who are aware of the spiritual poverty of our world, and who are compassionate and altruistic enough to save themselves no effort to keep the spiritual flame burning, and enlarge it, among humanity.

There has always been, since the awakening of human self-consciousness, a group of great souls, awakened humans ahead of the average, who did just that. They often had to work in utmost secrecy, especially in the darkest ages. These great souls have been called by many names, such as mahatmas, rishis, gods, devas, kachinas, angels – every people with a living spiritual tradition has had its own term for them. Often, in more lucid ages, they were great kings, scientists, philosophers and occultists, and were respected by the peoples then living. The ancient Egyptians had their god-kings, and so had the Mayas, Aztecs, the South American peoples, and others. In Europe we once had a tradition of Druids –priests and philosophers initiated in the sacred and secret mysteries, with their scientists the ovates, and their singers and keepers of holy song, the bards. In Tibet this tradition of the godly kings – incarnation of the gods of compassion and wisdom - has existed until recently or perhaps still exists in the form of the Dalai and Panchen lamas. In other countries many of the common people still believe their leaders to be partly divine, though practice learns us that this is no longer the case in our days. It is said that before the god-kings the demigods and even the gods themselves ruled the earth, and mythologies refer to those days. But whether publicly or hidden, the work has continued without a break. In the dark ages they must work even harder I suppose, but behind the screens of the stage of the mundane world.

The fruits of the work of these great souls are known to us as the great religions, the great spiritual philosophical systems, however decadent they may have become nowadays, and in the lofty moral codes which even today are felt in the heart of each individual and every people or culture, and which form our spiritual and mental support. Without them no culture would exist, and when forgotten an existing culture will no doubt collapse.

All the founders of the great religions and philosophies belonged to this sacred community of great souls or were their semi-human/semi-divine envoys. We know them as Buddhas, Christs, Zoroasters, Quetzalcoatls, Hero Twins, Avataras, Dragons of Wisdom and by many other names, many belonging to what western science calls prehistoric times. Most workers of this world-encompassing sacred community we have never heard about and have always remained in abodes which are secret to the world. They do their work in silence and in compassionate wisdom. without any selfish purpose, without human gratitude. But no doubt one of the greatest sacrifices such a soul can make is to descend to us, and live publicly among the sceptic, unbelieving trite world to see themselves and their teachings ridiculed, opposed and threatened. We know the allegoric story of Jesus, later known as the founder of Christianity, but the same applies to the less commonly known Apollonius of Tyana who lived mainly in the Greek world around the first years of the Christian era. There have been many great philosophers in Greece, such as Pythagoras, Plato and Plotinus and quite a few others who knew about and had been partly initiated in the great Mystery teachings, or as we call it, the Secret Doctrine. The same is true for a number of the great Indian and Tibetan teachers which have become known to the West in modern times: Shankaracarya, Shantideva, Atisha, Tsong-kha-pa, Nagarjuna, to mention but a few. They have lived in all regions of the world. All of them have in common that they had a tremendous influence on philosophy and morality. Also in the occidental world after the collapse the Greek and Roman supremacy there have been efforts to help our culture with aspects derived from the secret doctrine. Thus were founded the original orders of Rosicrucians, Alchemists, Freemasons, Theosophists and others.

All great religions may differ in outer forms, but the interesting thing is that when one takes on a study of various traditions, ancient and modern, we find that they have their essence in common. But the accent may lie on different aspects of the ageless secret doctrine. What we know of very ancient traditions such as the prehistoric Europeans, North-Africans, Americans, and Asians is that these people were very scientifically oriented. All over the world we find remnants of often enormous stone structures. All of them have in common that they carefully show the position of the sun, moon, planets, particular stars, the zodiac, and the cardinal directions – east, north, south and west. The pyramids of Egypt, for example, are oriented strictly according to the cardinal directions, and the so-called air channels are oriented to the polar star as its position was when the pyramids were built, and to other stars at the firmament which had a crucial meaning in relation to the spiritual scientific knowledge of the Egyptians. In ancient stone structures in Britain, North, Central, and South America we find that the sunlight hits some marked spot exactly on the dates of the solstices or equinoxes. As these structures are found all over the world dating from eras when they did not have our modern means of electronic communication, shows that there must have been a common global knowledge in which all these distant peoples shared. It is impossible that they just blindly imitated each other. More acceptable is a theory that these aspects of perennial knowledge and wisdom were given to them by great souls who were not restricted by physical limitations, and who knew the whole picture - that is the gigantic interconnectedness of living forces which move throughout the universe, the solar system and to and through the earth, and which bear a close relation with the spiritual paths which humans and peoples travel.

The particular moments of the year and the position of the earth in relation to the other planets, the sun and the moon in our solar system, are of utmost importance for the position of the vital-magnetic channels which connect these celestial entities. The existence of such channels or energy flows is as real as the existence of visible light or other forms of energy known to modern science. Particular moments, when the sun, the moon and the planets touch the magnetic foci connected with the four cardinal directions of our earth, are the opportunities for the souls of human beings who have the purity, steadfastness and training to leave their bodies and travel in their higher principles through the solar system to become acquainted with the inner realms of nature.

Though today we no longer build large stone structures to mark the right moment and ease the peregrinations of the soul, the truth about the inner being of nature and ourselves – the secret doctrine – is the same as ever. Much is written in literature. The inner structure of our solar system is described in the old books – the puranas – of India in teachings concerning what they call lokas and their inhabitants. Keys to deepen our understanding of these puranic teachings are given by Blavatsky or her teachers in her book which she also gave the name The Secret Doctrine, so that we can nowadays understand them on a deeper level that perhaps even the Brahmin caste of the past centuries could. A very essential overview of the meaning of the structure of the solar system and its relation with human sleep, death, and initiation is given in G. de Purucker’s The Four Sacred Seasons. It is about the spiritual purpose of life and evolution.

Modern religions, those which belong to our present great phase of evolution, have their emphasis on the development of the pure and higher mind and ethics. They are more philosophical than scientific. If we might assign a keyword to each of the modern religions, we see that it is always of an ethical nature. If we do so with Christianity we first think of “love of one’s neighbor.” In Islam it is “peace.” The keyword of (mahayana) Buddhism would be “compassion,” of Jainism “non-violence,” of Hinduism “dharma – duty,” and the great Greeks such as Pythagoras, Socrates and Plato, Apollonius, Plotinus and many others, always emphasized the concepts of spiritual beauty, goodness, truth and justice. All religions underscore the stainless purity of mind, or rather the use we make of the mind. All religions have given a tremendous spiritual impulse to philosophy, science, religion, ethics and art. And within all religions we meet with an esoteric side - that is, the outer garments of the secret doctrine. Within the Jewish tradition we have Qabbala, within Islam Sufism, within Buddhism we have the higher tantras, the Greeks had their Mystery Schools. The great souls behind the founding of the modern theosophical movement are called mahatmas (or masters) of wisdom and compassion, and the core concept of the Theosophical Society is brotherhood (encompassing all humans and, in a wider sense all living beings on earth and in the universe). The Greeks had their schools where the Great (inner, secret) Mysteries were taught in Eleusis and Samotrace, and the lesser mysteries which showed a reflection of the inner mysteries by means of drama and music openly to the general public near Athens. In a sense the Theosophical Society can be compared to the lesser mysteries. Some aspects of the secret doctrine was esoteric or secret until recently has now become exoteric, open to the general public. But within the exoteric the esoteric lies hidden. And today the greater mysteries also still exist, but I could not tell you exactly where they are and what work they do. They are only open for those who have through their purity and strength of character shown that they are ready to receive the divine teachings, stand the inner trials of the soul that is the result of that knowledge, and will keep absolute secrecy.

One of the characteristics of dark ages like our own is that people are largely interested in power, self-esteem, pride and material gain, rather than in wisdom which survives personal death and is helpful to all beings. Millions want the highest and the greatest for themselves as soon as possible and as cheap as possible. This has in our century given rise to many imitation occult or esoteric practices and sects and “flying gurus,” and their often attractive knowledge can easily mix with genuine wisdom for those who do as yet not have the purity and discrimination to separate chaff from wheat. Right understanding of the mysteries demands unshakeable mental discipline and absolute freedom of selfish motivation. In these days it is very easy to be lured away and led astray by teachings which come in the disguise of sacred, secret or esoteric traditions, fervently propagated by their gurus who themselves may be unaware of the mistakes they are making.

How can we discriminate between a true doctrine and an seemingly true doctrine? The real doctrine never touches our wish for personal satisfaction. It is only recognized by our higher faculties: our spiritually directed mind and intuition, our impersonal, stainless, unselfish wish to serve the good of all. The true doctrine is always for the good of all who want to take notice, never for an elite, a selected few excepting others. Its propagators never ask anything for themselves – be it money, praise, external devotion or other personal rewards. The great souls never work through spiritualistic mediums, dancing glasses, or “automatic writing” or other such occult possibilities, because that would exclude the higher free will and moral discrimination of the one who serves as a medium. How many of our gurus and “spirit-teachers” can stand the trial of those criteria? If they cannot, abandon them for your own sake and that of others.

The theosophical movement is part of the chain of efforts of the great souls to teach and help humankind. The visible founder of the TS, in 1875, was Mme Blavatsky, but she did so by direct commission of a few of those great souls who remain out of the public domain. These mahatmas as they are called had been given permission by their leader to make another effort to refer the world to the existence of the secret teachings for the good of humankind, and lift a tip of the veil around those teachings in accordance with our present stage of evolution and moral standards. This “lifting of the veil” has been done by giving us – that is, those who have the eyes to read and ears to hear – some keys to the understanding of the ancient teachings which are available to us. We live in a remarkable age. With our technical accomplishments we have reached a level of technology, communication and education available for everyone of which past cultures of many centuries could not even have dreamt. We have the written sacred texts of the Indians, Persians, Tibetans, Chinese, Mayas, the Nordic tradition, the Greeks and the Egyptians and others at our disposal, all translated into modern languages. The real secret traditions were never written down in such a way that they could be read by the eyes of the uninitiated - which are we, the common people. But thanks to the keys we can find in modern theosophical literature we can understand aspects of those teachings which could not have been understood by humanity – not even by the common men and women of the peoples who were the custodians of those teachings – for many thousands of years. On the other hand there may have been keys which existed in the past, but are lost for us. A key is not just a simple thing that give us admission to what is behind the door as soon as we have turned it around, but there are many degrees of subtlety in its application, depending on the development, knowledge and intuition of each aspirant. Secrets are only unveiled for those who can recognize them.

The secret doctrine is based on the omnipresence and unity of life and consciousness. In theosophical literature the core teachings on which the whole esoteric doctrine is based is designated by the Sanskrit term saptaratnani, the “seven jewels” of wisdom. We can here but briefly mention these seven jewels. The first is known as the universal doctrine of cycles: whatever comes, has been before; whatever goes, will return – but ever progressing because experiencing. The second is known as cause and effect. Wherever there is consciousness, there is freedom, wherever there is freedom there is choice. Wherever there is choice there is cause. Cause means motion, i.e. change, and that what has changed in relation to a cause is an effect, which itself is an intermediate cause of other effects. As cause comes from consciousness, effect is experienced by consciousness. It is the universal law of retribution, of restoration of balance, of justice, and of compassion because it helps the soul to recognize its divine essence. In east and west this is known as karma. The third jewel is known as the law of hierarchies. Hierarchy means “reign of holy beings.” In the universe all things are connected and interdependent, and the whole is supervised by holy beings, these by still holier beings, and so on, known popularly as gods or devas. These are not beings that have been given a particular position as in human society, but form a natural ladder of real accomplishment in wisdom and compassion, a spiritual ecosystem in connection with all that lives. In theosophy we speak therefore of the Hierarchy of Compassion. This means that the whole universe is pervaded by wisdom and compassion, which is the same as karma. This wisdom and compassion translate themselves on all levels of being, from the most spiritual to the most material. Suffering we do not usually recognize as compassion, but suffering is nature’s most benign way of correcting those who abandon listening to the noble and silent voice of their heart. It is also the doctrine on the hierarchy or ladder of consciousness along which we can rise through the various invisible and ever more subtle strata of the solar system or the universe.

The fourth jewel is the doctrine of self-becoming and self-unfolding or self-expression of the fundamental characteristic or individual essence of each being. A rose expresses “roseness,” and on a further level “plantness”; Beethoven expressed “Beethovenness,” which is different from “Wagnerness,” though both expressed themselves by means of music. Each of us, each being, unfolds through its evolution all that is in its core – and this may be in thousands or millions of subsequent forms.

The fifth doctrine is about evolution, a subject which is discussed very comprehensively in modern theosophical literature. Evolution has a purpose: to make us into real full-blown humans, great souls with fully awakened spiritual qualities, such as “omniscience,” conscious immortality, all-pervading and active compassion, and absence of personal suffering. The sixth is about the path to full humanhood, also called buddhahood, and the choice which we can and will make at the end between utter bliss and rest for ourselves, or return to the world with its pains to help all those who are still blind and struggling. The seventh ratna or jewel is the final knowledge of our essence and its oneness with the universe. Still very little of these doctrines has been given to us in modern theosophical books, though they covers several thousands of pages, but it is as much as we can handle. We have millions of years ahead of us to learn more.

We have been talking about ancient cultures and now closed mystery schools. But what about our own era? Have the great souls abandoned us? Have we, as humanity, and as Theosophical Society in particular, hopelessly failed? I think that universal compassion can never abandon us. Perhaps the mahatmas had hoped we had done better, so that they could have made more direct use of this or other organisations. But no doubt they continue their work in silence. It is said in theosophical literature that mystery schools exist even today on places inaccessible to the public – and satellite imaging and stratospheric spy planes have not changed that fact.

Individual people working in the world may receive their inspiration even without being aware of it. In one of the letters written by the mahatmas it is mentioned that the Edison, the great inventor in the field of modern technology stood under protection of one of the mahatmas, the same as one of the founders-on-the background of the Theosophical Society and the individual teacher of H.P. Blavatsky. Even in modern science humankind is not left alone, despite the fact that some New-Agers tend to despise all technology, which they regard as aberrations of nature’s ways. There is also reference to a “Master of Vibrations” whose special task it is to inspire (and perhaps protect) modern science, in which “vibrations” have been become so important in our means of communication. Who knows how many individuals of special character were used in this way as mediators to help humankind in its scientific, technical, political, moral and spiritual development? The more energy is put into our culture, the more friction, because new energies bring changes, and changes evoke resistance. Have we not had a lot of that in the twentieth century – and already in the still young twenty-first – almost up to the level of human self-destruction? The great souls who oversee the karma and destiny of humankind never become presidents or scientists themselves in the human world of this age, but they give hints in their own way – and we can listen or ignore.

In the political history of Europe there was one well-known great adept – no doubt among many others of whom we no little or nothing - who sometimes appeared publicly, and this was Comte de Saint-Germain. He is known to have appeared to the royal courts of Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He could not take over the job of the kings and nobility, but he could appeal to the best of their humanity and of their intuition to prevent that event took an even worse direction than the actual course of occidental history as we know it.

The Theosophical Society has done and does its work – however imperfect. And if we review the last one and a quarter century we see that we have gone through a tremendous development. About technology everyone knows. In the field of religion old crystallized and dogmatized form have collapsed or are crumbling – and this goes not without pain and war. In the field of politics we have seen and see a change from rigid monarchies and dictatorships towards democracies. In the field of brotherhood - however much remains to be done - we can even hardly imagine how the relation between races and religions was in the nineteenth century and the first part of the twentieth. In the field of theoretical science we have come much closer to the ancient teachings than a hundred years ago: the oneness of energy and matter, the understanding of astronomy and chemistry, of psychology – though the battle has not been won before we see the oneness of consciousness including human and superhuman intelligence and spiritual wisdom, and matter/energy in its many perceptible and (as yet) imperceptible forms. In our daily psychological well-being we are, generally speaking, far less fearful of death. Even though only some 20% of the western people accept the possibility of reincarnation, most of us today have a deep feeling that there is “something” in us which remains untouched by physical death, and nowadays we dare openly talk about death and dying – which was a taboo only decades ago. Even though personally I know of nobody in my circles who has ever shaken the hand of a mahatma or has received a letter or heard his divine voice speaking to him or her, I am fully confident that they have not left us. They are themselves part of humanity - and the best part if it.

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