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DISCOURAGED?

HERE may be conditions under which we should all agree that a valiant and devoted servant of Masters was justified in being discouraged. Such exceptional cases, however, would be likely to carry their own warrant with them-the individual would not need to ask, "Is this discouragement right?" For beginners in the theosophic life, like most of us, it might be profitable to ask ourselves, "Is it sensible to allow ourselves to be discouraged?" That question suggests that discouragement is voluntary with us. But is it? Would any of us choose to dwell in that miserable valley where fog, and the rain of our tears, shut out the sunshine and the cool, clean air from the heights? Perhaps one's first answer is a decided negative, he knows that he hates being in the grip of discouragement. Yet if he sit down and ask himself, in the quiet of his own heart, whether his moods, his feelings, his hopes, and his fears are all sent him from above (let us say, from God): can he say that they are? No, he cannot. He must confess that they are chosen by him, from a large range of possible feelings constantly open to him;-at least, he would say that this is sometimes

true.

So we might ask, Does God send us discouragement? Is God ever discouraged over us? We should have to admit that, according to the present outlook, mankind might be regarded as something of a disappointment. Man certainly does not appear to be filling his natural part in the evolutionary plan as well as the birds,—to take only one of many possible illustrations. What has man to show, to-day, that compares with the beauty of the plumage of the birds, or with the melody of their unceasing chorus of praise? When is his rejoicing as true and clean as theirs, what has he created that is as lovely as their song? Compared with them, man seems to hover in the pin-feather stage; helpless; mouth wide open, clamouring always for more of the Creator's bounty:-a thing unbalanced and unbeautiful, unless viewed with the indulgent eyes of a hopeful parent. Still, our concept of God does not include the possibility of His pausing in an undertaking to view with discouragement the unsatisfactory progress made. It is not possible to imagine such a slackening of the Will that holds the universe in its appointed place and order.

Looking at the case in purely human terms, it would seem that God had much provocation to discouragement, since there are so many of His plans that require for their fulfilment a degree of co-operation that men, with a few exceptions, steadily refuse to accord to God: man's

will runs in the opposite direction. Does God, perhaps, send discouragement to make man turn about and look his opportunity in the face? Some might answer, Yes. But those who have the enormous advantage of living in large families or of working in groups would probably dispute that conclusion. They have so often seen the operation of so-called misfortunes, and have observed how they were met by their fellows.

Some loss or trial comes, one that bears alike on all, and is not, in any immediate sense, the result (punishment, some would say) of their common mistakes and sins. What happens? Part of their number leap forward, as if by instinct,-feeling that here is the chance to acquire some new power of heart or will. Others steady themselves—make sure of their connection with their true centre-and set themselves to doing more faithfully the tasks already assigned them, feeling that this is their best answer to the new demand. A few, in the pressure of the same identical demand, topple over, and say, as they lie prone in the dust, "Why did this affliction come to me? When I have tried so hard to do right, this is certainly discouraging. There is no use in trying if all my efforts are to be met in this way. I have done the best I could."

Most of us know this feeling-but how does it look to us when we see the evidence of it in others? Sometimes as though "discouragement" were a thin mask put on to hide from the wearer (others see beneath it) the ugly grimace of cowardice. Take the man at his word-he has done his best, and has met with momentary defeat! What an excellent position he is in. Any man who has done his best can do it again; let him only keep on, and defeat must inevitably turn into victory. Or maybe he sees that the effort he had thought so complete was very partial, compared with what he now sees one of his brothers doing;-and he says to himself, "This is discouraging; I never could put that much into my effort; in fact I do not wish to give over everything that is beautiful and joyous, as he has done,-only to fall short as he, with his so great efforts, is plainly doing. Is it worth my while to try further when it is all so unlovely?"

One answer to these comrades who, for the moment, think the hill too steep, might be in terms of force. Their faces are set toward the goal; the desire of their hearts does not waver; their difficulty is that their calculation was faulty. They did not know how steep the grade that confronted them. They imagined, we might say, that they were at the beginning slopes, where the least exertion carries one along; instead they are better off because they are further on; they have had the good fortune to reach where the ascent becomes a bit difficult; the effort they made in the beginning is not sufficient to carry them up the slope ahead. Is it cause for discouragement that they find themselves that much nearer their goal? But they need more force, to carry them up. Yes, and they have learned how to get it; they have learned that they can get all they will use, that Masters, like nature, abhor a vacuum, and

will never let the reservoir go dry so long as one draws from it with steady, wise purpose.

Some people who are making quiet progress, have fits of depression in which they see themselves tobogganing down hill. But why have they taken their eyes off the goal? Why are they looking, instead, at their fellows, and using the devil's measuring rod? It may be God's purpose to give to a soul the great grace of real contrition. How silly, how ungrateful for one so favoured to look with troubled eye, not wholly unmixed with a tinge of envy, upon a comrade whose debonair manner is indeed pleasant but bespeaks an understanding yet so limited, a devotion so infantile, that an older child were indeed foolish to regret that he cannot feel or behave in that way. So much of the time we hold beautiful blossoms in our hands, and discard them to hold, instead, weeds that stain and sting.

May we say, then, as a partial answer to the initial question, that it is never right to be discouraged so long as there is anything that one can do. If a student finds himself with no faults to overcome; if there are no virtues that he might acquire; if he has no disappointments, no failures, no heartaches to suffer-and thus a chance to give to others the fruit of willing suffering-then, he is dead,-and probably far beyond discouragement.

A. B. C.

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NOTES ON THE WORD

THEOSOPHY

O FAR as the writer knows, the uses of the word Theosophy, from its first appearance in Greek until the present time, have never been recorded. Many facts of significance have been revealed in connection with the employment of this term by one after another author. It appears in the earliest centuries of our era, extends through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and was in almost common use prior to 1875. The present article attempts to suggest to others fruitful fields of research, since it is too incomplete to offer any final statement or conclusive history. Almost every one of the men in whose writings the word occurs would repay a most thorough study, even including critics of the last three centuries. Outside of this more modern field of critics, no author we have discovered used the term without seeming in some way to have come into touch with that Divine Wisdom for which the word Theosophy stands.

Any study of the subject would naturally fall into two divisions. The first would relate to the early history of the word, not so scant as might be supposed; for that history would include not merely its actual appearance in one or another book, but also some indication of the intellectual background which occasioned the use-the choice on the part of the author of that particular term. The second part, beginning not much before the sixteenth century, would take into account the streams of thought which are represented, first, by Theosophers themselves, who had a greater or less degree of insight and understanding; and, at the opposite pole, theologians, or purely wordly-minded philosophers and scientists, who resented the very existence of the other class, and who spent their energies in denouncing or ridiculing Theosophy, Theosophists, and all things theosophical, at every turn and on every occasion.

To those interested in Theosophy, it might seem at first sight a waste of time to examine the hostile criticism directed against exponents of Theosophy, and the systems which they introduced from time to time into the current of European thought; yet, as a matter of fact, the degree of this criticism, its development, the different grounds on which it has been based, and its gradual modification, reaching to-day almost to an attitude of friendly tolerance in certain quarters, is a phenomenon which has a significance all its own. So that any complete statement of the use of the word Theosophy in history would miss a large part of its fruitfulness by omitting those occasions where it occurs in writers whose attitude varies from purely hostile or ignorantly contemptuous, to one of amused or indulgent friendliness. This later phase cannot, however, be dealt with in this article.

In The Key to Theosophy (p. 2), Madame Blavatsky states that Theosophy, a letter for letter rendering of the Greek words eos and oopla, is equivalent to the Hindu terms Brahma and Vidya, which have their own history in relation to our Theosophical Movement', and which also have a high antiquity in the Indian philosophical systems. The present writer is not qualified to discuss this interesting phase of the problem, nor can he at the present writing hazard even a guess as to what terms or glyphs were an equivalent in ancient Egypt. But the two Greek terms, phonetically reproduced in Latin and English, particularly when used in conjunction, signified to the Greek mind concepts which are age-old in their antiquity in both India and Egypt, and which, to be properly understood, must take into account the fact that their Greek users knew this age-old tradition, that they stated that they knew it, and that, therefore, modern interpreters must search in Hindu and Egyptian religion and philosophy for the full significance which these two Greek words expressed. As Mr. John T. Driscoll writes in the article in the Catholic Encyclopedia, under the caption "Theosophy": "India is the home of all theosophic speculation. Oltramere says that the directive idea of Hindu civilization is theosophic. Its development covers a great many ages, each represented in Indian religious literature. There are formed the basic principles of theosophy. Knowledge of the occult laws in nature and in life, the intuitive method, superhuman powers, hostility to established religion, are not all equally apparent in each age, but are present conjunctively or separately through the whole course of its history."

Barring the last phrase, Mr. Driscoll's statements are unexceptionable, and show an advance over such earlier statements as Madame Blavatsky must have had in mind when she wrote in the opening article of The Theosophist: "There were Theosophists before the Christian era, notwithstanding that the Christian writers ascribed the development of the Eclectic theosophical system to the early part of the third century of their Era. Diogenes Laertius traces Theosophy to an epoch antedating the dynasty of the Ptolemies; and names as its founder an Egyptian hierophant called Pot-Amun, the name being Coptic and signifying a priest consecrated to Amun, the god of Wisdom. [The Theosophical Glossary (1st edition), says "Amun (Coptic). The Egyptian god of wisdom who had only Initiates or Hierophants to serve him as priests."] But history shows it revived by Ammonius Saccas, the founder of the Neo-platonic School. He and his disciples called themselves 'Philalethians,' lovers of the truth, while others termed them 'Analogists' on account of their method of interpreting all sacred legends, symbolical myths, and mysteries, by a rule of analogy or correspondence, so that events which

Cf. the mistaken rendering of the recent Harmsworth Encyclopedia, London, c. 1910, art. "Theosophy," vol. VIII, p. 5912. "An intuitive or ecstatic mode of enunciating doctrines, originated in, or at least more particularly characteristic of, India, where it is entitled Atmå Vidya (spirit science), or Guptâ Vidya (secret science)." The author of the article misses the true value of the terms.