12. The Dual Aspect of Wisdom
Helena P. Blavatsky
[Lucifer, Vol. VII, No. 37, September 1890, pp. 1-9. Collected Writings, Volume XII-1890]
[The original of this document, handwritten by H.P.B., is held in the Archives of the Theosophical Society, Adyar, Chennai, India.]
Editor’s Note: The following is a collection of quotations drawn from the article by Mme. Helena Blavatsky referred to above, intended to emphasize the aspect of Wisdom as a living truth. This article was written towards the very end of her life.
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“No doubt but ye are the people,
and wisdom shall die with you.”
Job, xii, 2.
“But wisdom is justified of her children.”
Matthew xi, 19.
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(…)
Our age, we say, is inferior in Wisdom to any other, because it professes, more visibly every day, contempt for truth and justice, without which there can be no Wisdom. Because our civilization, built up of shams and appearances, is at best like a beautiful green morass, a bog, spread over a deadly quagmire. Because this century of culture and worship of matter, while offering prizes and premiums for every “best thing” under the Sun, from the biggest baby and the largest orchid down to the strongest pugilist and the fattest pig, has no encouragement to offer to morality; no prize to give for any moral value. Because it has Societies for the prevention of physical cruelty to animals, and none with the object of preventing the moral cruelty practised on human beings. Because it encourages, legally and tacitly, vice under every form, from the sale of whiskey down to forced prostitution and theft brought on by starvation wages, Shylock-like exactions, rents, and other comforts of our cultured period.
Because, finally, this is the age which, although proclaimed as one of physical and moral freedom, is in truth the age of the most ferocious moral and mental slavery, the like of which was never known before. Slavery to State and men has disappeared only to make room for slavery to things and Self, to one’s own vices and idiotic social customs and ways.
Rapid civilization, adapted to the needs of the higher and middle classes, has doomed by contrast to only greater wretchedness the starving masses. Having levelled the two former it has made them the more to disregard the substance in favor of form and appearance, thus forcing modern man into duress vile, a slavish dependence on things inanimate, to use and to serve which is the first bounden duty of every cultured man.
(…)
Let us premise by saying that Wisdom is, at best, an elastic word – at any rate as used in European tongues. That it yields no clear idea of its meaning, unless preceded or followed by some qualifying adjective. In the Bible, indeed, the Hebrew equivalent Hokhmâh (in Greek, Sophia) is applied to the most dissimilar things – abstract and concrete. Thus we find “Wisdom” as the characteristic both of divine inspiration and also of terrestrial cunning and craft; as meaning the Secret Knowledge of the Esoteric Sciences, and also blind faith; the “fear of the Lord,” and Pharaoh’s magicians. The noun is indifferently applied to Christ and to sorcery, for the witch Sedecla is also referred to as the “wise woman of En-Dor.”
(…)
From the earliest Christian antiquity, beginning with St. James (iii, 13-17), down to the last Calvinist preacher, who sees in hell and eternal damnation a proof of “the Almighty’s wisdom,” the term has been used with the most varied meanings. But St. James teaches two kinds of wisdom; a teaching with which we fully concur.
He draws a strong line of separation between the divine or noëtic “Sophia” – the Wisdom from above – and the terrestrial, psychic, or devilish wisdom (iii, 15).
“For where envying and strife is there is confusion and every evil work.
But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.” (III, 16-17)
For the true Theosophist there is no wisdom save the former. Would that such a one could declare with Paul, that he speaks that wisdom exclusively only among them “that are perfect,” i.e., those initiated into its mysteries, or familiar, at least, with the A B C of the sacred sciences.
But however great was his mistake, however premature his attempt to sow the seeds of the true and eternal gnosis on unprepared soil, his motives were yet good and his intention unselfish, and therefore has he been stoned. For had he only attempted to preach some particular fiction of his own, or done it for gain, who would have ever singled him out or tried to crush him, amid the hundreds of other false sects, daily “collections” and crazy “societies”? But his case was different. However cautiously still he spoke “not the wisdom of this world” but truth or the “hidden wisdom . . . . which none of the Princes of this World knew” (1 Corinth. ii, 6-8) least of all the archons of our modern science.
With regard to “psychic” wisdom, however, which James defines as terrestrial and devilish, it has existed in all ages, from the days of Pythagoras and Plato, when for one philosophus there were nine sophistae, down to our modern era. To such wisdom our century is welcome, and indeed fully entitled, to lay a claim. Moreover, it is an attire easy to put on; there never was a period when crows refused to array themselves in peacocks’ feathers, if the opportunity was offered.
But now as then, we have a right to analyze the terms used and enquire in the words of the Book of Job, that suggestive allegory of Karmic purification and initiatory rites:
“Where shall (true) wisdom be found? Where is the place of understanding?”
And to answer again in his words:
With the ancient is wisdom; and in length of days understanding” (Job, xxviii, 12, and xii, 12).
Here we have to qualify once more a dubious term, viz: the word “ancient,” and to explain it. As interpreted by the orthodox churches, it has in the mouth of Job one meaning; but with the Kabalist, quite another; while in the Gnosis of the Occultist and Theosophist it has distinctly a third signification, the same which it had in the original Book of Job, a pre-Mosaic work and a recognized treatise on Initiation.
Thus, the Kabalist applies the adjective “ancient” to the manifested WORD or LOGOS (Dabar) of the forever concealed and incognizable deity. Daniel, in one of his visions, also uses it when speaking of Jahve – the androgynous Adam Kadmon. The Churchman connects it with his anthropomorphic Jehovah, the “Lord God” of the translated Bible.
But the Eastern Occultist employs the mystic term only when referring to the reincarnating higher Ego. For, divine Wisdom being diffused throughout the infinite Universe, and our impersonal HIGHER SELF being an integral part of it, the atmic light of the latter can be centred only in that which though eternal is still individualized – i.e., the noëtic Principle, the manifested God within each rational being, or our Higher Manas at one with Buddhi.
It is this collective light which is the “Wisdom that is from above,” and which whenever it descends on the personal Ego, is found “pure, peaceable, gentle.” Hence, Job’s assertion that “Wisdom is with the Ancient,” or Buddhi-Manas. For the Divine Spiritual “I” is alone eternal, and the same throughout all births; whereas the “personalities” it informs in succession are evanescent, changing like the shadows of a kaleidoscopic series of forms in a magic lantern.
It is the “Ancient,” because, whether it be called Sophia, Krishna, Buddhi-Manas or Christos, it is ever the “first-born” of Alaya-Mahat, the Universal Soul and the Intelligence of the Universe.
Esoterically then, Job’s statement must read: “With the Ancient (man’s Higher Ego) is Wisdom, and in the length of days (or the number of its reincarnations) is understanding.”
No man can learn true and final Wisdom in one birth; and every new rebirth, whether we be reincarnated for weal or for woe, is one more lesson we receive at the hands of the stern yet ever just schoolmaster – KARMIC LIFE.
But the world – the Western world, at any rate – knows nothing of this, and refuses to learn anything. For it, any notion of the Divine Ego or the plurality of its births is “heathen foolishness.” The Western world rejects these truths, and will recognize no wise men except those of its own making, created in its own image, born within its own Christian era and teachings. The only “wisdom” it understands and practises is the psychic, the “terrestrial and devilish” wisdom spoken of by James, thus making of the real Wisdom a misnomer and a degradation.
(…)
As to the world of the students in mystic lore, it is almost worse. Things have strangely altered since the days of antiquity, when the truly wise made it their first duty to conceal their knowledge, deeming it too sacred to even mention before the hoi polloi.
While the medieval Rosecroix, the true philosopher, keeping old Socrates in mind, repeated daily that all he knew was that he knew nothing, his modern self-styled successor announces in our day, through press and public, that those mysteries in Nature and her Occult laws of which he knows nothing, have never existed at all. There was a time when the acquirement of Divine Wisdom (Sapientia) required the sacrifice and devotion of a man’s whole life.
It depended on such things as the purity of the candidate’s motives, on his fearlessness and independence of spirit; but now, to receive a patent for wisdom and adeptship requires only unblushing impudence. A certificate of divine wisdom is now decreed, and delivered to a self-styled “Adeptus” by a regular majority of votes of profane and easily caught gulls, while a host of magpies driven away from the roof of the Temple of Science will herald it to the world in every marketplace and fair.
Tell the public that now, even as of old, the genuine and sincere observer of life and its underlying phenomena, the intelligent coworker with nature, may, by becoming an expert in her mysteries thereby become a “wise” man, in the terrestrial sense of the word, but that never will a materialist wrench from nature any secret on a higher plane – and you will be laughed to scorn.
Add, that no “wisdom from above” descends on any one save on the sine qua non condition of leaving at the threshold of the Occult every atom of selfishness, or desire for personal ends and benefit – and you will be speedily declared by your audience a candidate for the lunatic asylum. Nevertheless, this is an old, very old truism. Nature gives up her innermost secrets and imparts true wisdom only to him, who seeks truth for its own sake, and who craves for knowledge in order to confer benefits on others, not on his own unimportant personality. And, as it is precisely to this personal benefit that nearly every candidate for adeptship and magic looks, and that few are they, who consent to learn at such a heavy price and so small a benefit for themselves in prospect – the really wise Occultists become with every century fewer and rarer. How many are there, indeed, who would not prefer the will-o’-the-wisp of even passing fame to the steady and ever-growing light of eternal, divine knowledge, if the latter has to remain, for all but oneself – a light under the bushel?
(…)
Wisdom and Truth are synonymous terms, and that which is false or pernicious cannot be wise.
(…)
Nevertheless, if anyone would presume to call “unwise” or “false” the world-chosen authorities, or declare their respective policies dishonest, he would find himself promptly reduced to silence. To doubt the exalted wisdom of the late Cardinal Newman, or of the Church of England, or again of our great modern scientists, is to sin against the Holy Ghost and Culture.
Woe unto him who refuses to recognize the World’s “Elect.” He has to bow before one or the other, though, if one is true, the other must be false; and if the “wisdom” of neither Bishop nor Scientist is “from above” – which is pretty fairly demonstrated by this time – then their “wisdom” is at best – “terrestrial, psychic, devilish.”
Now, our readers have to bear in mind that nought of the above is meant as a sign of disrespect for the true teachings of Christ, or true science nor do we judge personalities but only the systems of our civilized world.
Valuing freedom of thought above all things, as the only way of reaching at some future time that Wisdom, of which every Theosophist ought to be enamored, we recognize the right to the same freedom in our foes as in our friends. All we contend for is their claim to Wisdom – as we understand this term.
Nor do we blame, but rather pity, in our innermost heart, the “wise men” of our age for trying to carry out the only policy that will keep them on the pinnacle of their “authority,” as they could not, if even they would, act otherwise and preserve their prestige with the masses, or escape from being speedily outcasted by their colleagues. The party spirit is so strong with regard to the old tracks and ruts, that to turn on a side path means deliberate treachery to it.
Thus, to be regarded now-a-days as an authority in some particular subject, the scientist has to reject nolens volens the metaphysical, and the theologian to show contempt for the materialistic teachings. All this is worldly policy and practical common sense, but it is not the Wisdom of either Job or James.
(…)
What, indeed, has WISDOM, Theosophia – “the Wisdom full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy” (James, iii, 17) – to do with our cruel, selfish, crafty, and hypocritical world? What is there in common between divine Sophia and the improvements of modern civilization and science; between spirit and the letter that killeth?”
NOTE
(*) See “The Deadlock of Darwinism”, by Samuel Butler, In the Universal Review for April 1890.