70 quotes
In concentration, the consciousness is held to a single image; the whole attention of the Knower is fixed on a single point, without wavering or swerving.
Muhammadan law in its relation to women, is a pattern to European law. Look back to the history of Islam, and you will find that women have often taken leading places - on the throne, in the battle-field, in politics, in literature, poetry, etc.
The destruction of India's village system was the greatest of England's blunders.
Yet that is the most splendid privilege of man, that the true birthright of the human Spirit, to know his own Divinity, and then to realise it, to know his own Divinity and then to manifest it.
When the Will is exercised for the advantage of the lower self, when it is employed for personal ends and aims, then is the man a Black Magician, a danger to the race, and his results obstruct and delay human evolution.
A Study in Consciousness: A contribution to the science of psychology (1904)
Karma brings us ever back to rebirth, binds us to the wheel of births and deaths. Good Karma drags us back as relentlessly as bad, and the chain which is wrought out of our virtues holds as firmly and as closely as that forged from our vices.
Mysticism is the realisation of God, of the Universal Self. It is attained either as a realisation of God outside the Mystic, or within himself. In the first case, it is usually reached from within a religion, by exceptionally intense love and devotion, accompanied by purity of life, for only "the pure in heart shall see God".
Let a soul radiate in every direction love and compassion, and thoughts of hatred can find nothing to which they can attach themselves. p. 273
The Ancient Wisdom (1897)
But when the Will is exercised for the advantage of the lower self, when it is employed for personal ends and aims, then is the man a Black Magician, a danger to the race, and his results obstruct and delay human evolution.
A Study in Consciousness: A Contribution to the Science of Psychology (1904)
Hail to thee, Osiris, Lord of Light, dwelling in the mighty abode, in the bosom of the absolute darkness. I come to thee, a purified Soul; my two hands are around thee (xxi. 1).
Theosophical Manual No III: Death & After (1894)
My own life in India, since I came to it in 1893 to make it my home, has been devoted to one purpose, to give back to India her ancient freedom.
I often think that woman is more free in Islam than in Christianity. Woman is more protected by Islam than by the faith which preaches monogamy. In AI Quran the law about woman is juster and more liberal.
Man, according to the Theosophical teaching, is a sevenfold being, or, in the usual phrase a septenary constitution. Putting it yet in another way, man's nature has seven aspects, may be studied from seven different points of view, is composed of Seven Principles.
The first step of all, absolutely necessary, without which no approach is possible, by which achievement ever comes within reach of realization, may be summed up in four brief words: the Service of Man.
Initiation, The Perfecting of Man (1923)
Yoga is a matter of the Spirit and not of the intellect. For just as water will find its way through every obstruction, in order to rise to the level of its source, so does the spirit in man strive upwards ever towards the source whence it came.
For all the practical purposes of Yoga, the man, the working, conscious man, is so much of him as he cannot separate from the matter enclosing him, or with which he is connected. Only that is body which the man is able to put aside and say: "This is not I, but mine."
He has then realised the peace of the Master, the one who is utterly master of his vehicles, and therefore master of life and death. Capable of receiving into them the tumult of the world and of reducing it to harmony; capable of feeling through them the sufferings of others, but not sufferings of his own; he stands apart from, beyond, all storms.
A Study in Consciousness: A Contribution to the Science of Psychology (1904)
The world-Bibles, then, are fragments—fragments of Revelation, and therefore are rightly described as Revelation. p. 375
Esoteric Christianity: Or, The Lesser Mysteries (1914)
Amid all these holy acts, the knowledge of self (should be translated, knowledge of the Self, Ātmā) is said (to be) the highest; this indeed is the foremost of all sciences, since from it immortality is obtained.* [* xii. 85. Trans. of Burnell and Hopkins.]
Theosophical Manual No III: Death & After (1894)
To know is the difference between walking in the darkness and in the light, and to understand the laws of Nature is to gain the power of quickening our evolution by utilizing every law that hastens our growth, by avoiding the working of those that would retard and delay.
Initiation, The Perfecting of Man (1923)