Spiritual Teachings Concerning the Soul

GA 52 — 8 December 1904, Berlin

XVIII. Is Theosophy Buddhist Propaganda?

Today's lecture is intended to discuss one of the most widespread prejudices about the Theosophical Movement: that Theosophy is nothing more than propaganda for Buddhism. A term has even been coined for this movement: Neo-Buddhism. Now, there is no doubt that our contemporaries would have much to object to in the Theosophical Movement if what is expressed in this prejudice were in any way correct. Those who, for example, hold a Christian point of view will rightly ask themselves: What use is a religion that was intended for completely different circumstances, for a completely different people, for completely different conditions, to those who have made Christianity their creed or who have been raised in Christianity? And those who hold the point of view of modern science may in turn ask themselves: What can Buddhism offer us, who live with the scientific concepts that have been gained over the last few centuries, since everything it deals with belongs to a circle of thought that arose many centuries before our era? Today we want to deal with the question of how this judgment came about and what value it actually has.

You know that the Theosophical Movement was founded in 1875 by Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott, that it has since spread throughout all the educated countries of the world, that thousands upon thousands of people who are searching for answers to the questions of existence have found satisfaction in it in the deepest sense, that it has produced research that speaks deeply to the soul of modern man. All this cannot be denied, and we must ask ourselves: How does this movement, which has a rich literature and has produced a number of men and women who are now able to speak independently in its spirit, relate to the religions of the East, to Hinduism, and especially to Buddhism?

A good deal of the blame for this prejudice I have mentioned lies with the title of one of the most widely read books in our field. It is the book that has won countless people over to the movement, Esoteric Buddhism by Sinnett. It is a strangely unfortunate coincidence that the title of this book could be so thoroughly misunderstood. Madame Blavatsky says of this book that it is neither Buddhism nor esoteric, even though it is called Esoteric Buddhism. And this judgment is extremely important for the assessment of the theosophical movement. Buddhism is indeed on the title page of Sinnett's book, but this Buddhism should be written with one d, not two, as if it came from Buddha, because it comes from Budhi, the sixth human principle, the principle of enlightenment, of knowledge. Budhi means nothing other than what was called Gnosis in the early Christian centuries. Knowledge through the inner light of the spirit, the teaching of wisdom.

If we understand the term “Buddhism” in this way, we will soon be able to admit that the teachings of Buddha are nothing other than one of the manifold forms in which this teaching of wisdom is spread throughout the world. Not only Buddha, but all the great teachers of wisdom have spread this Buddhism: the Egyptian Hermes, the ancient Indian rishis, Zarathustra, the Chinese teachers of wisdom Lao Tzu and Confucius, the initiates of the ancient Jews, Pythagoras and Plato, and finally the teachers of Christianity itself. In this sense, they spread nothing other than Buddhism, and esoteric Buddhism means nothing other than the inner teaching, as opposed to the outer teaching. All the great religious confessions of the world have made this distinction between inner and outer teaching. Christianity, too, knew this difference between esoteric and exoteric content, especially in the first centuries.

The esoteric differs significantly from the exoteric. The exoteric is what a teacher proclaims before the congregation, what is spread through the word, through the book. It is what everyone who has reached a certain level of education understands. Esoteric teaching is not disseminated through books; the esoteric part of every wisdom religion is only disseminated by word of mouth and in other ways. In order to convey esoteric content to a person, an intimate relationship between the teacher, who must also be a guide, and his student is necessary; an immediate personal bond between teacher and student is essential; it requires that this relationship between teacher and student express something that goes far beyond mere communication, beyond mere words. There must be something spiritual in this relationship between teacher and student; the teacher's spiritual power must have an effect on the student. The will, trained in wisdom, must allow something to flow in that is directly transferred to the student or the small community, which alone, as a small community, should enjoy esoteric teaching. Furthermore, esoteric teaching requires that this small community be gradually led up to the higher levels. One cannot recognize the third level if one has not completely mastered the first and second. What esotericism encompasses is not only learning, but a complete transformation of the human being, a higher education and training of all the soul's powers. The person who has gone through the esoteric school has not only learned something, but has become a different person in temperament, disposition, and character, not only in insight and knowledge.

What is entrusted to the outer world or to an outer book can only be a faint reflection of actual esoteric teaching. Therefore, Madame Blavatsky rightly says that Sinnett's book is not esoteric Buddhism, for the moment any teaching is communicated through a book or publicly, it is no longer esoteric; it has become exoteric, for the peculiar coloring of the mind, the coloring of the finer soul forces, the whole spiritual breath that must flow through and warm what esotericism contains, all this must have disappeared from what is communicated merely through a book.

One thing is possible, however: those whose dormant abilities can be easily awakened, and who have the will and inclination not only to read between the lines of a book, but to suck in the words, so to speak, can extract from this book what lies at the basis of esotericism in an exoteric book. Under certain circumstances, it is possible to gain a high degree of insight into esoteric teachings without receiving direct personal esoteric instruction. But that does not change the fact that there is a huge difference between everything esoteric and exoteric. The Christian Gnostics of the first centuries tell how, in the words of Origen and Clement of Alexandria, when they spoke to their intimate disciples, the immediate fire of the soul, the immediate spiritual power, was at work, and how these words then had a completely different life than when they were spoken before a large congregation. Those who enjoyed the intimate teaching of these great Christian teachers can tell how their whole soul was transformed and how their whole soul became different.

In the last third of the 19th century, there was a need to awaken spiritual life in humanity as a counterweight to the materialistic worldview that had taken hold not only in scientific circles but also in religious circles, for religions had taken on a very materialistic character. It had become necessary to reawaken the inner spiritual life. This inner life can only be awakened by those whose words are based on the power created in esotericism. It had become necessary for some people to speak again about things they knew not only from books and teachings, but from direct personal observation of the worlds that lie above the physical plane. Just as someone can be experienced in the field of natural science, so too can someone be experienced in the field of soul life and spiritual life. One can have direct knowledge of these worlds.

At all times there have been people who have had spiritual experiences, and those who have had such experiences have been the important leaders and guides of humanity. What has flowed into humanity in terms of religious beliefs has emerged from the spiritual and soul experiences of these founders of religions. These founders of religions were nothing other than emissaries of the great brotherhoods of sages who are the actual leaders in human development. From time to time, they send their wisdom, their spiritual knowledge, into the world in order to give a new impulse, a new impetus to the progress of humanity. For the vast majority of people, it is not visible where these influxes into humanity come from. But those who can have their own experiences, who have a connection with the advanced brothers of humanity, who have reached a level that humanity will only reach in distant times, know where these impulses come from. This connection, through which the word of the Spirit speaks to the brothers and sisters from within through the advanced brothers of humanity, is itself an esoteric one that cannot be established through an external society, but is established directly through spiritual power.

From such a brotherhood of advanced individuals, a stream of wisdom, a new spiritual wave, had to flow into humanity in the last third of the 19th century. Madame Blavatsky was nothing other than a messenger of such higher human individuals who have attained a high degree of wisdom and divine will. And the messages that form the basis of “Esoteric Buddhism” were also of this kind, coming from such advanced human brothers.

Now, through a necessary but not yet easily comprehensible chain of world-historical spiritual events, the first influences of the theosophical movement emanated from the Orient, from Oriental masters. But even when Helena Petrovna Blavatsky wrote her “Secret Doctrine,” it was no longer only such Oriental sages who, as great initiates, imparted to Mrs. Blavatsky the teachings that can be found in the “Secret Doctrine.” An Egyptian and a Hungarian initiate had already added what they had to contribute to the new great impact. And since that time, many new currents have flowed into this theosophical movement, so that for those who know from their own knowledge what goes on behind the scenes — necessarily behind the scenes, because it can only slowly penetrate the theosophical current — it no longer makes sense today to say that this theosophical movement contains only a new Buddhism.

Not only the average person is dependent on their environment, their age, and their nation, but even the most highly developed person. Even those who have attained a high level of wisdom and divine will are still dependent on their environment in a certain way. The great sages of the movement emphasized this right at the beginning of the movement. The great sages had emerged from Oriental knowledge, from the Oriental world. They belonged to a brotherhood that had its roots in what is called the deep Buddhism of the Orient. This brotherhood has its roots not in so-called southern Buddhism, which you can find in Ceylon, for example, but in northern Buddhism, which not only encompasses the pure and noble moral teachings and the teachings of justice of southern Buddhism, but also a sublime teaching about the spiritual life of the world. This northern Buddhism can, in a certain sense, be regarded as a kind of esoteric teaching, in contrast to southern Buddhism.

Why did the renewal of spiritual life have to be stimulated from this side? Was it necessary? Let us not deceive ourselves about the whole situation that exists here, but let us express it as it appears to the unbiased observer.

All the great world religions and all the great worldviews originate from emissaries of these great brotherhoods of advanced human beings. But as these great creeds then make their way through the world, they must adapt to the different conceptions of the peoples, to the intellect, to the times, and to the nations. Our materialistic age, especially since the 15th and 16th centuries, has materialized not only science but also the religious creeds of the West. It has increasingly suppressed the understanding of the esoteric, the spiritual, and the actual life of the spirit; and so it came about that in the 19th century there was very, very little understanding left for a deeper wisdom. With regard to the origins of European religion, we must allow ourselves to say that those who had a spiritual conscience sought the spiritual, but found very little inspiration in the Protestant religious creed of the 19th century, and were dissatisfied with what they heard from religious creeds and theologians. It was precisely those who had the deepest religious needs who found the least satisfaction in the religious creeds of the 19th century. These religious creeds of the 19th century have been revived at their core by the esoteric essence of the universal wisdom teachings. Countless people who had previously been turned away from Christianity by interesting scientific facts were led back to Christianity by theosophy. It is thus the case that the Theosophical movement has deepened Christianity once more, that it has revealed the true, genuine form of Christianity, and has also led many of those back to Christianity whose souls and hearts could no longer be satisfied by it. This is because theosophy does nothing other than renew the inner core of Christianity and reveal it in its true form. For this to happen, however, it was necessary that the inspiration should come from the small circle in the Orient where a continuous stream had been preserved from the times of a highly developed spiritual life at the beginning of our root race.

From the Middle Ages into modern times, there have also been great sages in Europe, and such brotherhoods have also existed. I must mention the Rosicrucians again and again, but the materialistic century could accept little more from this Rosicrucian society. And so it came about that at the beginning of the 19th century, the last Rosicrucians had already united with their Oriental brothers, from whom the inspiration then emanated. European culture had lost its spiritual power, and so the great inspiration had to come from the Orient at first. Hence the saying: Ex oriente lux. — But then, when this light had come, the spark was found again, so that religious confessions could also be rekindled in Europe.

Today, we no longer have the slightest need to propagate echoes of Buddhism. Today we are able to present the matter entirely from our European culture, indeed from Christian culture, without any references to Buddhist sources or origins or other Oriental influences. It is remarkable what one of India's most important theosophists said at the Religious Congress in Chicago about the world mission of the theosophical movement. Chakravarti gave a speech at that time and said: The ancient spiritual life has also been lost among the Indian people. Western materialism has also found its way into India. In India, too, people have become arrogant and dismissive of the teachings of the ancient rishis, and the Theosophical Movement has earned the credit for bringing spiritual teaching to India as well. It is not correct to say that we are spreading the Indian worldview; rather, the opposite is true: it is the theosophical movement that has brought the worldview it represents back to India.

The scholars who studied Buddhism during the 19th century objected to the term “esoteric Buddhism” from their point of view. They said that the Buddha never taught anything that could be described as esoteric. He taught a popular religion that focused primarily on moral life, using words that could be understood by everyone; there was no question of a secret teaching in Buddhism. For this reason, some have said that a secret Buddhism cannot exist at all. Much that is inaccurate has been written about Buddha and Buddhism. You can see this from passages in the booklet published by Reclam. It says: "What I know and do not proclaim is much more than what I have proclaimed to you. And truly I have not proclaimed this to you, because it brings you no benefit, because it does not promote change in holiness, because it does not lead to hardening, to suppression of lust, to peace, knowledge, enlightenment, and nirvana. That is why I have not proclaimed this to you. And what have I proclaimed to you? That is suffering, that is the origin of suffering, that is the cessation of suffering, and that is the path that leads to the cessation of suffering. That is what I have proclaimed to you."

Such a passage immediately shows us that in Buddhism we are also dealing with a teaching that has not been proclaimed publicly. And why has it not been proclaimed publicly? Because an esoteric teaching cannot be proclaimed publicly at all! What else did Buddha want to proclaim to his people but an uplifting teaching of morals and ethics, through which each individual can mature to be accepted into a school of wisdom science, after having developed the virtue, temperament, and character necessary to be accepted into esotericism. Buddha proclaimed to his most intimate disciples what he had to say beyond the exoteric. Northern Buddhism has now preserved this secret teaching of Buddhism and all the great wisdom religions in a living spiritual current, and it was from them that the influence emanated which led to the founding of the Theosophical Society.

Now, our contemporaries in particular are reluctant to accept that any favorable influence could have come to us, whether from Buddhism, Hinduism, or any other Eastern religious creed. And just as we encounter an incredible prejudice here, so too could we demonstrate in relation to countless other points how little the Eastern religions have been understood in Europe, and how these religions are discussed in Europe by those who have never taken the trouble to penetrate them, and who behave as if something completely foreign to Western wisdom must be introduced into the West. It is said that Buddhism leads to escapism, to asceticism, that it leads to valuing non-existence more highly than life. And it is further said that such an escape from life, such hostility to life, is something that does not suit the active modern person. What use is such an escape from life, they say. One need only quote a single passage from the Buddhist scriptures to show how unfounded the accusation of hostility to life is when levelled at Buddhism. The term “Bikschu” means a disciple in Buddhism. If any Bikschu deprives a human being of life, praises death, or incites others to commit suicide, saying, “What good is this life to you? Death would be better than life!” — and if he justifies life after death in this way, then he has fallen away and no longer belongs to the community. This is a strict commandment of Buddhism, and it is forbidden to tell anyone that death is more valuable than life: this is one of the greatest sins in true Buddhism. If you take something like this, you will be able to gauge how inaccurate the mental images are that are repeatedly proclaimed by those who have not sufficiently studied the matter themselves.

It is difficult to eliminate prejudices that have become so deeply ingrained. One can only repeatedly point out the true nature of these things. One may have spoken, but soon the same objections arise again and again. One can say a hundred times that nirvana is not non-existence, but the fullness and richness of existence, that it is the highest summit of consciousness and being, that there is not a single passage — not even in the exoteric scriptures — which indicates that a true connoisseur forms the mental image of nirvana as non-existence: one can repeat this a hundred times, but again and again people speak of escape from life. Nirvana is exactly the same thing that Christianity speaks of. But only those who were initiated into the deeper mysteries of Christianity can point this out.

It cannot be denied that true Christians, scholastics, and mystics were deeply influenced by Dionysius the Areopagite. In his writings, you will find that when speaking of the divine being with which the human must unite at the end of its development, one should not attach to this highest being any predicate taken from our earthly mental images. Everything we can say about attributes we have acquired in this world. If we attribute such an attribute to the divine being, says this Christian esotericist, then we are saying that the divine is the same as the finite, the same as what is in the world. Dionysius Areopagita therefore speaks in his writings of not even saying God, but rather Supergod, and that in order to indicate the full sanctity of this concept, one must above all be careful not to attribute any characteristic taken from the world to this divine being; that one must therefore be clear that the qualities we can experience in the world cannot have the divine essence, but rather much more.

And again, this view was renewed by the great Cardinal Nikolaus Cusanus in the 15th century, as well as by the Christian mystics, Meister Eckhart, Tauler, Jakob Böhme, and indeed all mystics who gained insight into the great mysteries of existence through direct experience. Western Buddhists also spoke of nirvana in this way. We can perhaps better understand nirvana if we look for the European Christian words for it.

Anyone who goes back to the 16th century and examines the words of that time will find that it is more difficult to determine their meaning. Therefore, what is said about nirvana from a philological point of view is completely inaccurate. Those who speak of the theosophical movement as a new Buddhist movement will, above all, be unable to say anything accurate about the Buddhist school of thought. Those who have raised this prejudice usually do not know what they are talking about. For it is not necessary to resort to Oriental sources. Only the initial inspiration came from this Oriental source. What we have today does not flow to us from Buddhism. On the contrary, since the early days of the theosophical movement, life, immediate spiritual life, has become more and more active in the theosophical spiritual current. And if today someone who wants to proclaim the original theosophical teaching wanted to proclaim only a Buddhist creed, it would be just as if someone who wants to teach mathematics today did not teach what he himself knows, but wanted to teach the old Euclid or the old Descartes. That is the significance of the theosophical movement, that the first great teachers were only the great inspirers, and that since then men and women have arisen who have real spiritual experience and are able to communicate spiritual knowledge. What are Zarathustra, Buddha, Hermes, and so on to us? They are the great ones to us. Inspirers whom we revere and admire because when we look at them, the powers we need are stimulated within us. Even the greatest sages cannot impart knowledge by authority. If we still have a different relationship to Buddha, Zarathustra, and Christ than to the great teachers of mathematics or physics, there is a good reason for this. What is proclaimed as the principle of wisdom becomes immediate external life in human beings. Unlike mathematics or natural science, it is not external knowledge, but living life. What the science of wisdom conveys speaks to the whole human being. It permeates the entire personality, right down to the fingertips. And when it flows out of the personality, wisdom itself flows out, it flows from one being to another. Therefore, we do not stand in relation to Jesus, Hermes, and Buddha as we stand in relation to science, but rather in such a way that we stand in a communal life with them, that we live and weave and are in them. But in another way, they are only mere inspirers. When wisdom has become our own, they consider their task fulfilled. Therefore, it is not dogmas, doctrines, or what is written in books that matter, but that living life is in motion, pulsating. Those who do not know in their hearts that a living life pulsates through every single member, every single personality belonging to the theosophical movement, that they are permeated by living spiritual currents, do not understand the theosophical movement in the right way. We do not have a book in our hands and proclaim the doctrines of the book; we are life, and we want to communicate life. And as much life as we communicate, so much will theosophy work.

If we understand this, then we will also realize that it is not the wording of the teaching that matters, but the immediate spiritual experience that someone has to proclaim, that he himself has to say. It is a great misunderstanding to believe that one must swear allegiance to some master word in Theosophy, or that one must constantly repeat this or that dogma or doctrine originating from higher individualities, and that this is then Theosophy. People believe that they are theosophists if they talk about the astral world and Devachan and spread what is written in the books. That does not make someone a theosophist. It is not what is proclaimed that matters, but how it is proclaimed: that it is proclaimed as immediate life. Therefore, those who live the life that comes from these books, written by Madame Blavatsky or someone else, in the right way, will live this life in such a way that they live it individually. And that will be the best inspiration anyone can receive, which can also be obtained from Blavatsky, if they are able to receive the spiritual within themselves and send it out again. We need personalities who know how to proclaim from within themselves what they have experienced in the higher worlds. And then it does not matter whether it happens in the words of the Orient, in the words of Christianity, or with newly coined words. In the true theosophist, words and concepts do not live; the spirit lives in him. And the spirit has no words and no concepts; it has immediate life. All concepts and words are only the outer form of this spirit living in human beings. That will be the progress of the Theosophical Movement. And it will become all the more theosophical the more we have men and women who will understand theosophical life, who will understand that it is not important to talk about karma and reincarnation, but to make the spirit that lives within them the shaper and designer of words. Then we may not speak at all in the words that were valid in the theosophical movement, and yet we will be better theosophists. We will no longer have orthodox believers and heretics in the theosophical movement. If we were to distinguish between orthodox believers and heretics, we would no longer understand the theosophical movement. And for no other reason can we have either a Hindu or a Buddhist religious creed. We speak to each person in a way that they can understand, depending on their progress and the circumstances of the time.

It is therefore not right for us to speak to our Europeans in Buddhist phrases, because Buddhism in its form is something foreign to our European hearts and minds. We really have to live ourselves into their minds, but not impose something foreign on them. It would be a direct slap in the face to the spirit of the theosophical movement if we were to impose a foreign creed that is not rooted in the living life of the people. It was precisely the secret of the wisdom teachers that they found words and concepts to speak to everyone in a way that they could understand. Among the wisdom teachers, Hermes, Moses, Pythagoras, Buddha, and Jesus Christ show us this. They proclaimed to the peoples what they could understand in their places and in their times. Hermes would never have taught anything other than what was suitable for the Egyptian heart. Buddha would never have taught anything other than what was suitable for the Indian heart. And we must teach what is suitable for the Western heart. We must adapt to what already lives in the people. That was the secret of the great teachers of all times. And so we will once again deepen the core of wisdom in the great religious creeds and, above all, find access to every heart. We must unlearn to swear by dogmas, unlearn to seek the right in the recognition of a doctrine. We must look only at life. Then we will no longer give cause for such prejudices, as if we wanted to proclaim a new Buddhism, as if we wanted to make Buddhist propaganda. Those who understand Theosophy as a modern spiritual movement will speak to Christians in Christian mental images, to scientists in scientific forms. Human beings may err in details, but in their innermost being they must find the truth, in whatever form it expresses itself. But one speaks as if one wants to give stones to those who seek bread when one speaks to them in unfamiliar forms.

At the same time, this points to how false and incorrect it is when we make any dogma in the sense of an old church the basis of our beliefs. We have no such dogmatism. Those who know what the theosophical movement is really about do not look to dogmas. What we have to teach is deeply written in every mind. What the theosophist has to proclaim, he does not have to seek in a book or in a tradition; it does not spring from dogma, it springs solely from his heart. He has nothing to do but to encourage his listeners to read what is written in their own souls. Those who want to help must be inspirers.

Thus, the theosophist stands before the life of each individual soul and wants to be nothing more than an inspirer who helps them to self-knowledge. More and more people will understand the theosophical movement in this way and then, through positive work, ensure that prejudices such as the idea that we want to spread Buddhist propaganda, as if we wanted to inoculate Christianity with something foreign, can no longer take hold. No, the past is dead unless it is brought to life again. It is not what we read in books and documents that has life, but what arises anew in our hearts every day. When we understand this, then we are true theosophists. Then there will be theosophical freedom in our society, theosophical self-striving on the part of everyone, not an oath to any dogma, but only research, only striving, only longing for one's own knowledge. Then there will be no heresy, nothing that could be recognized as unattainable, no struggle, but a united striving for an ever more united spiritual life! This is how the great ones have always acted. This is also how Goethe acted and beautifully expressed it in the words:

Only those who must conquer it daily deserve freedom as they do life.