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Annie Besant

217 quotes

“Only let them not desire to impose their own form of bliss on everybody else, nor insist that the kind of happiness which seems to them at this stage the only one desirable and satisfying, must be stereotyped to all eternity, through all the millions of years that lie before us.”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nature gives to each in Devachan the satisfaction of all pure desires, and Manas there exercises that faculty of his innate divinity, that he “never wills in vain”. Will not this suffice?”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Looking at them, it does not seem as though even progress in intellect, slow as that also is, made the pace very much more rapid. When we look at those whose intellect is scarcely developed, they seem after each day of life to sink to sleep almost on the place they occupied the day before; and when we glance over those who are more highly evolved so far as intellect is concerned, they too are travelling very very slowly, and seem to make small progress in each day of life.”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In this way the Soul deliberately labours for growth; deliberately it works at itself, purifying always the lower nature with unceasing effort and with untiring demand; for ever it is comparing itself not with those who are below it but with Those who are above it, ever it is raising its eyes towards Those who have achieved, and not looking downwards towards those who are still only climbing upwards towards the Outer Court.”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thus thinking and thus practising, you will find this sense grow within you, this sense of calm and of strength and of serenity, so that you will feel as though you were in a place of peace, no matter what the storm in the outer world, and you will see and feel the storm and yet not be shaken by it.”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is no suffering for him who has finished his journey, and abandoned grief, who has freed him self on all sides, and thrown off all fetters.”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As the origin and basis of all religions, it cannot be the antagonist of any: it is indeed their purifier, revealing the valuable inner meaning of much that has become mischievous in its external presentation by the perverseness of ignorance and the accretions of superstition; but it recognises and defends itself in each, and seeks in each to unveil its hidden wisdom. p. 21”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The most sacred duty is filial piety. “God showers his blessings on him who honors and reveres the author of his days,” says Pampelus (De Parentibus, Orelli, op. Cit., ii, 345). Ingratitude towards one’s parents is the blackest of all crimes, writes Perictione ( ibid.,p. 350), who is supposed to have been the mother of Plato. p. 58”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The sacred books of the East are the best evidence for the greatness of their authors, for who in later days or in modern times can even approach the spiritual sublimity of their religious thought, the intellectual splendour of their philosophy, the breadth and purity of their ethic? And when we find that these books contain teachings about God, man, and the universe identical in substance under much variety of outer appearance, it does not seem unreasonable to refer to them to a central primary body of doctrine. To that body we give the name Divine Wisdom, in its Greek form: THEOSOPHY.”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The habit of quiet, sustained, and sequential thought, directed to non-worldly subjects, of meditation, of study, develops the mind-body and renders it a better instrument; the effort to cultivate abstract thinking is also useful, as this raises the lower mind towards the higher, and draws into it the subtlest materials of the lower mental plane. p. 195”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Because They had reached this level and mounted even higher, the great Founders of religions have ever been marked by Their overwelling compassion and tenderness, ministering to the physical as well as to the inner wants of men, to every man according to his need. p.173”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let a soul radiate in every direction love and compassion, and thoughts of hatred can find nothing to which they can attach themselves. p. 273”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The subject of the unfolding of consciousness in the beings whose field of evolution is a solar system is one of considerable difficulty; none of us may at present hope to do more than master a small portion of its complexity, but it may be possible to study it in such fashion as may fill up some of the gaps in our thinking, and as may yield us a fairly clear outline to guide our future work.”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We cannot, however, trace this outline in any way satisfactory to the intelligence, without considering first our solar system as a whole, and endeavouring to grasp some idea, however vague that idea may be, of “the beginnings” in such a system.”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We have learned that the matter in a solar system exists in seven great modifications, or planes; on three of these, the physical, emotional (astral), and mental - often spoken of as “the three worlds”, the well-known Triloki, or Tribhuvanam, of the Hindu cosmogony - is proceeding the normal evolution of humanity.”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On the next two planes, the spiritual - those of wisdom and power, the buddhic and the atmic - goes on the specific evolution of the Initiate, after the first of the Great Initiations. These five planes form the field of the evolution of consciousness, until the human merges in the divine.”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The time has now come for a fuller communication than is represented by this delicate thread in its original form, and it, as it were, widens out. This is but a clumsy way of picturing the fact that the Ray from the Monad glows and increases, assuming more the form of a funnel: “The thread between the Silent Watcher and his shadow becomes stronger and radiant." - The Secret Doctrine”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This downflow of monadic life is accompanied by much increased flow between the buddhic and manasic permanent atoms, and the latter seems to awaken, sending out thrills in every direction. Other manasic atoms and molecules gather round it, and a whirling vortex is seen on the three upper sub-planes of the mental plane.”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The difference between White and Black Magic lies in the motive which determines the Will; when that Will is set to benefit others, to help and bless all who come within its scope, then is the man a White Magician, and the results which he brings about by the exercise of his trained Will are beneficial, and aid the course of human evolution. He is ever expanding by such exercise”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But when the Will is exercised for the advantage of the lower self, when it is employed for personal ends and aims, then is the man a Black Magician, a danger to the race, and his results obstruct and delay human evolution.”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Will of the Black Magician has the strength of iron, pointing ever to the personal end, and it strikes against the great Will, and sooner or later must shiver itself into pieces against it.”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When the Self has grown so indifferent to the vehicles in which he dwells that their vibrations can no longer affect him; when he can use them for any purpose; when his vision has become perfectly clear; when the vehicles offer no opposition, since the elemental life has left them, and only the life flowing from himself animates them; then the Peace enfolds him and the object of the long struggle is attained.”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He has then realised the peace of the Master, the one who is utterly master of his vehicles, and therefore master of life and death. Capable of receiving into them the tumult of the world and of reducing it to harmony; capable of feeling through them the sufferings of others, but not sufferings of his own; he stands apart from, beyond, all storms.”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Yet is he able ever to bend down into the storm to lift another above it, without losing his own foothold on the rock of the Divine, consciously recognised as himself. Such are truly Masters, and Their peace may now and then be felt, for a time at least, by those who are striving to tread the same path, but who have not yet reached that same rock of the Self-conscious Divine.”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Helena Petrovna was married, as a girl of seventeen, to an old man, and promptly took flight from her husband, on discovering what marriage meant, and roamed about the world in search of knowledge. In August, 1851... on a moonlight night, as her diary tells us, beside the Serpentine, " I met the Master of my dreams." He then told her that he had chosen her to work in a society, and some time afterwards, with her father's permission, she went into training for her future mission, passing through seven and ten years of probation, trial and hard work....”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If people want to eat meat, they should kill the animals for themselves... Nor should they say that if they did not do it the slaughter would still go on... Every person who eats meat takes a share in that degradation of his fellow-men; on him and on her personally lies the share, and personally lies the responsibility.”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The misery we inflict on sentient beings slackens our human evolution.”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This spurious sentimentality—which refuses to recognise the obvious inequalities of intelligence and morality, and thereby reduces the teaching of the highly developed to the level attainable by the least evolved, sacrificing the higher to the lower in a way that injures both—had no place in the virile common sense of the early Christians.”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“S. Clement of Alexandria says quite bluntly, after alluding to the Mysteries: "Even now I fear, as it is said, 'to cast the pearls before swine, lest they tread them underfoot, and turn and rend us.' For it is difficult to exhibit the really pure and transparent words respecting the true Light to swinish and untrained hearers." (Clarke's Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Vol. IV. Clement of Alexandria. Stromata, bk. I., ch. xii.)”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If true knowledge, the Gnosis, is again to form a part of Christian teachings, it can only be under the old restrictions, and the idea of levelling down to the capacities of the least developed must be definitely surrendered. Only by teaching above the grasp of the little evolved can the way be opened up for a restoration of arcane knowledge, and the study of the Lesser Mysteries must precede that of the Greater. The Greater will never be published through the printing-press; they can only be given by Teacher to pupil, "from mouth to ear.”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Where only hints are given, quiet meditation on the truths hinted at will cause their outlines to become visible, and the clearer light obtained by continued meditation will gradually show them more fully. For meditation quiets the lower mind, ever engaged in thinking about external objects, and when the lower mind is tranquil then only can it be illuminated by the Spirit.”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It has actually been made a matter of boast that Christianity has no secrets, that whatever it has to say it says to all, and whatever it has to teach it teaches to all. Its truths are supposed to be so simple, that "a way-faring man, though a fool, may not err therein," and the "simple Gospel" has become a stock phrase.”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The rebels were not too bad for their religion; on the contrary, it was the religion that was too bad for them. The rebellion against popular Christianity was due to the awakening and the growth of conscience; it was the conscience that revolted, as well as the intelligence, against teachings dishonouring to God and man alike, that represented God as a tyrant, and man as essentially evil, gaining salvation by slavish submission. p. 39”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It would be fatal to ignore the facts marshalled by Comparative Mythologists. Rightly understood, they may be made serviceable instead of mischievous. We have seen that the Apostles and their successors dealt very freely with the Old Testament as having an allegorical and mystic sense far more important than the historical, though by no means negating it...”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nowhere, perhaps, is it more necessary to understand this than when we are studying the story of Jesus, surnamed the Christ, for when we do not disentangle the intertwisted threads, and see where symbols have been taken as events, allegories as histories, we lose most of the instructiveness of the narrative and much of its rarest beauty.”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Men fear that Christianity will be weakened when reason studies it, and that it is "dangerous" to admit that events thought to be historical have the deeper significance of the mythical or mystical meaning. It is, on the contrary, strengthened, and the student finds, with joy, that the pearl of great price shines with a purer, clearer lustre when the coating of ignorance is removed and its many colours are seen.”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This school is opposed by that of the believers in orthodox Christianity, who declare that the whole story of Jesus is history, unadulterated by legend or myth. They maintain that this history is nothing more than the history of the life of a man born some nineteen centuries ago in Palestine, who passed through all the experiences set down in the Gospels, and they deny that the story has any significance beyond that of a divine and human life. These two schools stand in direct antagonism, one asserting that everything is legend, the other declaring that everything is history. P. 123”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We will study first the historical Christ; secondly, the mythic Christ; thirdly, the mystic Christ. And we shall find that elements drawn from all these make up the Jesus Christ of the Churches. They all enter into the composition of the grandiose and pathetic Figure which dominates the thoughts and the emotions of Christendom, the Man of Sorrows, the Saviour, the Lover and Lord of Men. P. 127”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Historical Christ, or Jesus the Healer and Teacher. The thread of the life-story of Jesus is one which may be disentangled from those with which it is intertwined without any great difficulty. We may fairly here aid our study by reference to those records of the past which experts can reverify for themselves, and from which certain details regarding the Hebrew Teacher have been given to the world by H. P. Blavatsky and by others who are experts in occult investigation.”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is nothing exclusive in the knowledge save as every science is exclusive; those who are born with a faculty, and train the faculty, can master its appropriate science, while those who start in life without any faculty, or those who do not develop it if they have it, must be content to remain in ignorance. These are the rules everywhere of the obtaining of knowledge, in Occultism as in every other science. p. 129”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The occult records partly endorse the story told in the Gospels, and partly do not endorse it; they show us the life, and thus enable us to disentangle it from the myths which are intertwined therewith.”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He proceeded later to Egypt. He had been fully instructed in the secret teachings which were the real fount of life among the Essenes, and was initiated in Egypt as a disciple of that one sublime Lodge from which every great religion has its Founder.”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The fair and stately grace of his white purity was round him as a radiant moonlit halo, and his words, though few, were ever sweet and loving, winning even the most harsh to a temporary gentleness, and the most rigid to a passing softness. Thus he lived through nine-and-twenty years of mortal life, growing from grace to grace. p. 132”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The time had come for one of those Divine manifestations which from age to age are made for the helping of humanity, when a new impulse is needed to quicken the spiritual evolution of mankind, when a new civilisation is about to dawn.”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To that manifested Presence the name of "the Christ" may rightly be given, and it was He who lived and moved in the form of the man Jesus over the hills and plains of Palestine, teaching, healing diseases, and gathering round Him as disciples a few of the more advanced souls. The rare charm of His royal love, outpouring from Him as rays from a sun, drew round Him the suffering, the weary, and the oppressed, and the subtly tender magic of His gentle wisdom purified, ennobled, and sweetened the lives that came into contact with His own. p. 135”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“By parable and luminous imagery He taught the uninstructed crowds who pressed around Him, and, using the powers of the free Spirit, He healed many a disease by word or touch, reinforcing the magnetic energies belonging to His pure body with the compelling force of His inner life... The teachers and rulers of His nation soon came to eye Him with jealousy and anger; His spirituality was a constant reproach to their materialism, His power a constant, though silent, exposure of their weakness. p. 136”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the remarkable fragment called the Pistis Sophia, we have a document of the greatest interest bearing on the hidden teaching, written by the famous Valentinus.[Pg 138] In this it is said that during the eleven years immediately after His death Jesus instructed His disciples so far as "the regions of the first statutes only, and up to the regions of the first mystery, the mystery within the veil." p. 138”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Through the long centuries He has striven and laboured, and, with all the mighty burden of the Churches to carry, He has never left uncared for or unsolaced one human heart that cried to Him for help. And now He is striving to turn to the benefit of Christendom part of the great flood of the Wisdom poured out for the refreshing of the world, and He is seeking through the Churches for some who have ears to hear the Wisdom, and who will answer to His appeal for messengers to carry it to His flock: "Here am I; send me." p. 144”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The doctrines of the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ also form part of the Lesser Mysteries, being integral portions of "The Solar Myth," and of the life-story of the Christ in man.”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If we examine even the crudest idea of the forgiveness of sins prevalent in our own day, we find that the believer in it does not mean that the forgiven sinner is to escape from the consequences of his sin in this world; the drunkard, whose sins are forgiven on his repentance, is still seen to suffer from shaken nerves, impaired digestion, and the lack of confidence shown towards him by his fellow-men. p. 307”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source