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The Doctrine of the Resurrection Vol 7, No 11 the Doctrine of the Resurrection

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The Doctrine of the Resurrection Vol 7, No 11 the Doctrine of the Resurrection Theosophical Siftings The Doctrine of the Resurrection Vol 7, No 11 The Doctrine of the Resurrection by A.M. Glass A Lecture to the Adelphi Lodge, T.S. Reprinted from "Theosophical Siftings" Volume 7 The Theosophical Publishing Society, England [Page 1] BEFORE turning to the direct consideration of the subject of this paper, it will be useful to touch upon some more general questions with relation to the Christian religion. Theosophy brings to us a conception of religion widely at variance with those commonly held, either by the supporter of any special creed, or by the sceptic. The claim of the orthodox Christian is that a personal God gave a revelation of his nature and of mysteries, not otherwise to be known by man, through prophets and finally through his own Son who incarnated in the form of a man. The claims of the followers of other religions are of much the same order, each having a special Divine revelation, taught generally by an incarnation or incarnations of the Deity. The sceptic laughs at the whole as the result of the primitive beliefs of savage tribes, with their marvellous explanations of the phenomena of nature, calling in Deities and Spirits of all descriptions to explain natural things, otherwise to them incomprehensible. The belief in the immortality of the soul probably originated, according to this view, in the uncivilised man's interpretation of dreams of dead friends as the real return of the friends, and for most of the religious beliefs of the world are similar explanations forthcoming. They are all traced to the small origin of the uncultivated man's interpretation of the common facts of nature elaborated by the more advanced races and so built into the complex beliefs now covering the world. There are all degrees of opinion ranging between these two extremes, and one much in fashion is to look upon all religions with a good-natured equanimity, as more or less ingenious poetical expressions of the hopes and dreams of humanity. All have some germ of truth in their simple foundations, but the supernatural and marvellous in their composition are mere excrescences covering the true body. They are thus reduced mainly to different methods of rendering the same broad ethical teachings, and the said ethics are considered to be the only valuable portion. They are various roundabout ways of telling naughty children to be good. They all have their interest, it is said, for the student of human progress, but for the modern man, with his science and his instruments for exploring nature, they can hardly have the same importance as they had for the more innocent and confiding being of olden days. They are all good, very good, and have much value as expressions of that beautiful faculty of imagination which attributes life to natural processes, and stimulates those feelings of devoutness and wonder, which everyone must recognise as [Page 2] admirable — in their own way. Thus does the modern cultivated man look with benignant and excusing eye on the little frolics and fancies of his forefathers. It is a fine sign of the growth of benevolence. Now the conception Theosophy gives is, so far as I understand it, clearly distinct from all these, and one which appears to me to cover the whole ground more fully. If we look back over the history of religions, we find they almost all had their beginnings in the Page 1 Theosophical Siftings The Doctrine of the Resurrection Vol 7, No 11 appearance of a man or of men claiming to possess direct knowledge of things unknown to ordinary men. These beings came claiming a perception of the inner or spiritual workings of man and nature, and bringing some of the knowledge they had gained, that mankind might learn of the realities of spiritual things, of which otherwise they would have remained ignorant. If we look at the characters of the great religious teachers, so far as history will permit us, we find according to the testimony of those in contact with them, that they represented a high ideal of truth and wisdom in their lives, so that man has always recognised their claim to a divine knowledge, and has recognised that reverence is due to them. Scepticism and materialism may prove to reason that the things they told were dreams, and that they spoke falsely and ignorantly, but the heart of humanity will always receive them as messengers of wisdom, who speak with authority and tell of true things. In the Theosophical conception, man has the power within himself of obtaining knowledge of the hidden or inner workings of his own, and of surrounding nature. The instruments of knowledge we are acquainted with, the five senses, are not the only ones which may be developed, and men have lived who could investigate nature on other planes, with as much certainty as we can do on this. From uncounted ages of such experience recorded by the sages of the world, who have aroused this inner nature, there has grown a body of knowledge from which those spiritually awakened may draw. The records have not been merely those of individuals working independently, but it is said, that those who have reached a certain stage are united into some sort of organic whole, acting with more or less definite aims. From this great body of knowledge acquired by these and other means, it is said that the various great religions of the world have sprung, and thus they have a common source. Along with this conception, we have the further one of a double side to the creeds and stories of every form of religion, the Christian included. 'There is a religion that is public and is open to all, for it is of a nature suited to the unthinking, and to those whose spiritual perceptions are not awakened, and also an inner or esoteric religion, the real meaning underlying the forms of which the outer is built. These are not two [Page 3] contradictory beliefs, but are, so to speak, the body and the soul. The inner meaning is hidden because, for the mass of the people, the outer is more than sufficient, but for the earnest and the devoted, who seek for the truth, the hidden things are revealed in the very tales and creeds accepted in their dead letter sense by the greater portion of believers. Most men can sense something of the divine when brought to them in an external form. A great figure, such as almost every religion has as its founder, stands out as an ideal in which they may see some glimpses of a nature other than they know, and this is one great source of power in the sacred beliefs of the world. But when the man begins to perceive the spiritual or the divine within, and sees his ideal lying in the deeper recesses of his own being, he moves from the exoteric creed to the esoteric wisdom. And then the sacred stories mean something more than tales of history revealing an external God through some special man or divine incarnation. They mean the revelation of his own inner nature, the mysteries hidden from the outer eye and the perceptions of the outer mind. The scriptures of every religion show this double side, the outer and the inner, the open and the secret, and the records of Christianity as clearly as any, notwithstanding the boast of the Simple Gospel, free and open to all. Such claims can only be made by those ignorant of their own Scriptures and the history of their Church, or else disregarding the plain statements of their own authoritative writers. Page 2 Theosophical Siftings The Doctrine of the Resurrection Vol 7, No 11 Turning first to, the inspired source itself, the New Testament, let us see what we can find to uphold this claim. Jesus says to his disciples in Matt. xiii. 11-13: "Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath to him shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away, even that which he hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables; because seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand". This is not quite the free and open gospel of the Churches, but it is a true saying. For to him that has the power of understanding the spiritual truths will be given, while he that has it not, cannot retain even the few crumbs of knowledge he may have gathered, for they do not belong to him. Parables are all that he is fitted for. But the disciples themselves can receive but a little more. Only a slightly deeper layer of the shell is broken for them. The inner substance is yet hidden. Jesus tells them in John xvi. 25. "These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs (parables); — the hour cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but shall tell you plainly of the Father". [Page 4] It is significant to note that Jesus has previously been speaking of his own nature and works, and of the coming of the Comforter after his death, and his language is of the most mystical kind. If such teaching is only parable or symbol, how much more must the far cruder teachings in the other Gospels be symbolical, and be, in their literal meaning, but the gross body of the spiritual doctrine.
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