Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 August 1901 — THE "WISDOM RELIGION.” [ARTICLE]

THE "WISDOM RELIGION.”

Soma Ballefa of Member* of the Theosophtcal Societies. Theosophy, the Wisdom-Religion, has existed from immemorial time, writes Alexander Fullerton in the Arena. It offers a theory of nature and of life which is founded upon knowledge acquired by the sages of the past, more especially those of the east; and its higher students claim that this knowledge is not something imagined or inferred, but that it is seen and known by those who are willing to comply with the conditions. Upon the subject of man it teaches: That each spirit is a manifestation of the One Spirit, and thus a part of all. It passes through a series of experiences in incarnation, and is destined to ultimate re-union with the Divine. This incarnation is not single but repeated, each Individuality becoming re-embodied during numerous existences in successive races and on successive planets, and accumulating the experiences of each incarnation towards its perfection. That “Karma”—a term signifying two things, the law of ethical causation ("Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap”), and the balance or excess of merit or demerit in any individual—determines also the main experiences of joy and sorrow in each . incarnation,, so that what men call “luck” is in reality "desert,” desert acquired in past experience. That the spirit in man is the only real and permanent part of his being, the rest of his nature being variously compounded; and decay being incident to all composite things, everything in man but his spirit is impermanent. Further, that the Universe being one and not diverse, and everything within it being connected with the whole and with every other, of which upon the upper plane above referred to there is a perfect knowledge, no act or thought occurs without each portion of the great whole perceiving and noting it. Hence all are inseparably bound together by the tie of Brotherhood.