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July 11, 2015 Theme for the Week: Egotism and
Altruism
“It is altruism, not ego-ism even in its most legal and
noble conception, that can lead the unit to merge its
little Self in the Universal SELF.”
—H.P. Blavatsky
“Generosity and love are the abandonment of self.
That is your staff.”
—W.Q. Judge
Could we say, for definitions sake, that egotism is essentially separative consciousness? And by contrast altruism is the movement towards universal consciousness?
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions." says the proverb.
"Remembering the word of Masters: 'He who does what he
can and all that he can, and all that he knows how to
do, does enough for us.' This task includes that of
divesting yourself of all personality through interior
effort, because that work, if done in the right spirit,
is even more important to the race than any outward work
we can do."
W.Q. Judge, from letter 14 in Letters
That Have Helped Me
Very nice quote. Altruism deals with the effects and has its values. Divesting oneself of all personality through interior effort will bring light into the darkness, enabling others to see the "emptiness of the full" and ending avidya, the cause of sufferings.
It mirrors the grander cycles of involution and evolution.
I believe every level of consciousness, both separative as well as universal, belongs to different planes in the universe and each plane is filled lives of devas and elementals. In other words, our consciousness is not isolated, but related to, or even an expression of the lives on the various planes. The purification process expunges the lower grades of lives in our being by elevating our vibrations and bringing us more in tune with the higher devic forces.
July 12, 2015 Theme for the Week: Egotism
and Altruism
“If a man constantly aspires, is he not elevated.”
— Henry David Thoreau
Interesting: elevation and altruism.... descent and egotism. These parings point to universality and isolation.
What can I do to help humanity today?
That would be the altruistic attitude. It is interesting to me that with a question so simple we reveal just how far we need to go to really live a spiritual life, an ethical life, you might say to be a real theosophist. So much of our daily consciousness is centered on the "needs" of the personality. The personality is a necessary tool for the soul to interact with the world but it is a mask and does not have any permanent domain yet it commands so much of our attention. How much of our thinking revolves around Tamiko's question? What can I do for others?
This question might have many answers, as most questions along these lines do.
Perhaps we must consider another layer to this practice
of altruism. Outer acts of kindness and compassion are
not overlooked, as they are important on their own
plane, but there are many planes. We must consider the
inner acts of kindness and compassion directed at the
millions of lives that we cannot
see which often stand undetected, maliciously
abused or conditioned with gluttonous desires in some
cases. They count just as much as our physical
neighbor, as they are in some way the medium between us
and our neighbor.
My answer to Tamikos question; the best anyone can do
to help humanity is to apply that same universal aid to
ones self. With out this, the soul withers and will not
be revived by a lifetime of good actions. There is no
use to help externally, hiding under the facade of false
altruism if one is rotten morally and ethically. It
will show in time, there is no doubt to this. We see
many examples of this in the public image, from friends
and family, to politicians, to hollywood icons, their
empire crumbles with shifting sands.
There is so much we can do, and perhaps are doing at
this moment.
July 14, 2015 Theme for
the Week: Egotism and Altruism
“Every man must shun extreme self-love and follow ever
in the steps of his better.”
— Plato
“Meditate on loving kindness by cultivating the wish to
give happiness. By developing compassion, overcome
this self-cherishing attitude and cultivate that of
cherishing others.”
— Geshe Rabten
July 16, 2015 Theme for the Week: Egotism and
Altruism
“Where the love of self is banished, there dwelleth the love of God.”
—
Jacob Boehme
“Standing on the bare ground…. all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part and parcel of God.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
"To live for and as the Self of all beings."
July 15, 2015
Theme of the Week: Egotism and Altruism
“How can a man describe as other than himself that which, when he discerned it, seemed not other, but one with himself indeed?”
— Plotinus
“How can one who remains attached to his own self
Go beyond time to the world where all is one?”
— Maggid Devaraw Le-Ya’Aqov