CHÂM NGÔN PHẬT - Thái Bá Tân

CHÂM NGÔN PHẬT

1
Luôn thù hận người khác
Là chuốc khổ cho mình.
Không tha thứ người khác,
Lòng sẽ khó an bình.

2
Một người cứ định kiến,
Nghĩ mình tốt nhất đời,
Sẽ khó mà nhận thấy
Cái hay của mọi người.

3
Gặp nghịch cảnh, đừng sợ.
Ngược lại, phải cảm ơn.
Vì đời là nghịch cảnh,
Nhờ thế, ta lớn hơn.

4
Ta, con người, đau khổ
Vì chưa sống bằng tâm.
Vì luôn chiều thân xác,
Chạy theo các sai lầm.

5
Một khi bạn không muốn
Rước phiền não vào mình,
Thì không ai có thể
Làm bạn thấy bực mình.

6
Khi vui sướng, hãy nghĩ
Vui sướng không kéo dài.
Khi buồn đau, hãy nghĩ
Buồn đau không kéo dài.

7
Chỉ có thể an lạc
Và thấy lòng thảnh thơi
Khi ta học được cách
Buông bỏ hết sự đời.

8
Khi ta mong người khác
Được hạnh phúc hơn mình,
Nghĩa là ta độ lượng
Đang bố thí vô hình.

9
Muốn thay đổi người khác,
Phải thay đổi chính mình.
Muốn chinh phục người khác,
Phải chinh phục chính mình.

10
Bởi không ai có thể
Thay đổi được đời này.
Vậy chỉ còn một cách -
Thay đổi mình hàng ngày.

11
Không ném đá con chó
Đang vô cớ sủa anh.
Không bận tâm suy nghĩ
Người đang nói xấu anh.

12
Một ngày ta cố chấp,
Ta ân hận suốt đời.
Hãy rộng lòng lượng thứ
Với tất cả mọi người.

13
Mỗi vết thương, dù nhỏ
Là một bước trưởng thành.
Hãy giữ vết thương ấy
Như một phần đời anh.

14
Được sống thêm một ngày
Là hạnh phúc một ngày.
Người cụt chân đau khổ
Hơn người không có giày.

15
Ở đời, mọi cái đẹp
Luôn giản dị, bình thường.
Tốt, không cần phải nói.
Hữu xạ tự nhiên hương.

16
Thời gian là phương thuốc
Công hiệu và tuyệt vời.
Thời gian giúp xóa sạch
Mọi phiền muộn cuộc đời.

17
Một người mà không biết
Yêu chính bản thân mình,
Thì người ấy không thể
Yêu những người quanh mình.

18
Không thể không đau khổ
Và suốt đời buồn lo
Những người luôn cố chấp,
Chuyện bé xé thành to.

19
Với những gì ta có,
Hãy cảm ơn cuộc đời.
Với những gì chưa có,
Hãy cảm ơn cuộc đời.

20
Cẩn thận khi nói dối.
Vì trót nói một lời,
Thì dù muốn, không muốn,
Phải nói tiếp mười lời.

21
Thực ra thì nhân quả
Không nợ ta điều gì.
Vậy đừng oán trách nó
Trong bất cứ điều gì.

22
Một ngày sống vô ích
Với mình và với người,
Là một ngày ăn cắp
Của mình và của người.

23
Một người đã dốt nát
Lại còn thích ba hoa,
Chẳng khác người ở bẩn
Cứ thích xức nước hoa.

24
Biết tôn trọng người khác
Là biết tôn trọng mình.
Người biết tôn trọng mình
Sẽ tôn trọng người khác.

25
Ngẫu nhiên là sự đến.
Đi mới là tất nhiên.
Tùy duyên mà bất biến.
Bất biến mà tùy duyên.

26
Vũ khí quan trọng nhất
Ấy là lòng từ bi.
Ai có được cái ấy
Thì chẳng cần thêm gì.

27
Phần lớn ta, rốt cục,
Làm ba điều trong đời:
Dối mình và dối người,
Và bị người lừa dối.

28
Gặp khó khăn, nguy hiểm,
Chỉ một cách: Chúng ta
Phải đối mặt với nó
Và tìm cách vượt qua.

29
Khi khư khư giữ chặt
Cái gì đó trong tay.
Rốt cục trong tay bạn
Chỉ có được cái này.

30
Người ta làm việc thiện
Là để giúp chúng sinh.
Nhưng một phần trong đó
Cũng là giúp chính mình.

31
Chỉ một cách duy nhất
Để tâm hồn thảnh thơi
Là bình thản đón nhận,
Không trách trời, oán người.

32
Ở đời, cái đẹp nhất
Không thể nhìn hoặc tim,
Mà phải cảm nhận nó
Bằng tất cả trái tim.

33
Bóng tối không bao giờ
Có thể xua bóng tối.
Cũng thế, chỉ tình yêu
Xua hận thù, tội lỗi.

34
Chỉ có hai lựa chọn
Ta đối mặt hàng ngày:
Chấp nhận cái có sẵn,
Hoặc tìm cách đổi thay.

35
Đừng quên: mỗi sáng dậy,
Tức là ta tái sinh.
Và điều quan trọng nhất -
Ta làm gì với mình.

36
Đừng quên: Mỗi buổi sáng,
Thức dậy cùng bình minh,
Ta có thêm cơ hội
Để làm mới chính mình.

37
Ghét, thù hận không khó,
Cái khó là thương yêu.
Cũng vậy, sống thiện khó,
Sống ác dễ hơn nhiều.

38
Cái ta làm cho mình
Sẽ mất khi ta chết.
Cái ta làm cho đời
Sẽ trường tồn, bất diệt.

39
Cây mọc được xanh tốt,
Lại còn cho quả ngọt
Là nhờ ở dưới cây
Xác chết tích lâu ngày.

40
Muốn thực sự hơn người,
Ta phải nhìn lên trời,
Vì khi ta nhìn xuống,
Ta thấy ta hơn người.

41
Trời - lúc nắng, lúc mưa.
Người - lúc vui, lúc khổ.
Đừng quá thiếu, quá thừa.
Đừng quá lớn, quá nhỏ.

42
Khi ta sống hết mình,
Nghĩa là ta quên mình.
Tưởng không sống cho mình,
Nhưng lại sống cho mình.

43
Mỗi người một thế giới
Duy nhất, không giống ai,
Nhiều tầng như vũ trụ,
Bí ẩn như con bài.

44
Ai cũng sống vì mình,
Mà nên sống vì mình,
Rồi mới vì người khác,
Tức là cũng vì mình.

45
Khi đi về phía trước,
Phía mặt trời long lanh,
Tức là ta để lại
Bóng tối sau lưng mình.

46
Mọi việc không vô cớ,
Vậy đừng quên điều này:
Trong cái may có rủi,
Trong cái rủi có may.

47
Tai họa thường bắt đầu
Bằng một cơn cuồng giận,
Và kết quả về sau
Là nỗi buồn hối hận.

48
Ở đời, hỏi có gì
Hơn lòng thương, lẽ phải?
Mọi cái sẽ qua đi,
Chỉ tình người ở lại.

49
Cái đau không xuất hiện
Tự nhiên trong người anh.
Mà nó là dấu hiệu
Cái gì đó không lành.

50
Người ngu tìm hạnh phúc
Ở đâu đó xa xôi.
Người khôn tìm hạnh phúc
Ngay ở chỗ mình ngồi.

51
Ta có thể né tránh
Một thực tế đắng cay,
Nhưng không thể né tránh
Hậu quả của điều này.

52
Ai một lần nói dối,
Rồi lần hai, lần ba,
Sẽ nghĩ rằng nói dối
Không có gì xấu xa.

53
Người khôn, trong mọi chuyện,
Đều tính trước đường lui.
Đừng vội vã cưa, chặt
Cành cây mình đang ngồi.

54
Khi biết được thói xấu
Và cái yếu của mình,
Ta đã đi một nửa
Con đường tới thông minh.

55
Đừng bao giờ tức giận.
Đừng bao giờ dọa người.
Nên mở đầu, kết thúc
Câu chuyện bằng nụ cười.

56
Hứa vượt quá khả năng
Chính là người giả dối.
Hứa hay mà không làm
Là một dạng tội lỗi.

56
Người ta làm việc thiện
Để giúp đỡ chúng sinh.
Nhưng một phần trong đó,
Cũng là giúp chính mình.

57
Không việc gì phải sợ
Người khác chống lại anh.
Chính nhờ gió thổi ngược,
Diều bay lên trời xanh.

58
Nếu muốn thì hãy cố
Thành người tốt ở đời.
Có điều đừng chứng tỏ
Với mình và với người.

59
Người đời, kể cũng lạ,
Thường rất dễ bị lừa.
Nhưng thật khó thuyết phục
Rằng họ đang bị lừa.

60
Chưa hẳn đã thất bại,
Ngã nhiều lần trong đời.
Nhưng anh sẽ thất bại,
Nếu đổ lỗi cho người.

61
Cái gì cũng có giá.
Giá học để thông minh
Luôn rẻ hơn cái giá
Ngu do không học hành.

62
Xin đừng quên, cái ác
Ẩn náu trong mỗi người.
Nhiều khi nó thắng thế,
Chui ra để hại đời.

63
Con người, ai cũng sợ.
Chỉ sợ ít hay nhiều.
Học nhiều sẽ sợ ít.
Học ít sẽ sợ nhiều.

64
Cảm giác sâu lắng nhất
Thường cảm thấy về đêm
Khi xung quanh yên tĩnh
Và lòng cũng lặng êm.

65
Hãy nói khi cảm thấy
Những lời nói của anh
Hay hơn sự im lặng.
Im lặng cũng tốt lành.

66
Sự thanh thản chí đến
Đâu đó từ bên trong.
Đừng thơ ngây tìm kiếm
Bên ngoài mà mất công.

67
Con chó được yêu quí
Không vì tiếng sủa hay.
Đánh giá người phải nhớ
Qua công việc hàng ngày.

68
Trên đời có nhiều cái
Không cần hiểu làm gì.
Nó tồn tại, còn việc
Chấp nhận không thì tùy.

69
Trở thành giàu tưởng khó,
Mà không khó lắm đâu.
Khi ta cảm thấy đủ,
Tức là ta đã giàu.

70
Để nhìn thấy ánh sáng,
Hạt giống chịu vùi sâu
Trong đất bẩn đen tối,
Rồi ngoi lên, ngẩng đầu.

71
Hạnh phúc là nụ cười.
Không nhất thiết mình cười,
Mà nhìn thấy người cười.
Vậy hãy làm họ cười.

72
Khi chỉ tay giận dữ
Mắng người trước đám đông,
Trước hết phải xem kỹ
Tay mình có sạch không.

73
Nếu ta nghĩ tiền bạc
Quan trọng nhất trên đời,
Thì rốt cuộc, suốt đời
Ta chạy theo tiền bạc.

74
Anh chán đời, có thể
Nguyền rủa cuộc đời mình.
Đừng quên, có ai đó
Chỉ mong được như anh.

75
Không có gì để nói,
Tốt hơn, đừng nói gì.
Cũng thế, chưa định hướng,
Đừng vội vã bước đi.

76
Ở đời, quan trọng nhất
Là hãy cố giúp người.
Nếu không thể giúp được,
Thì cũng đừng hại người.

77
Khi giận, không quyết định
Làm bất cứ điều gì.
Khi vui, không được hứa
Với ai bất cứ gì.

78
Trưởng thành không phải lúc
Anh nói điều phi thường,
Mà lúc anh suy ngẫm
Về những điều bình thường.

79
Nhìn người khác, cố tránh
Nhìn xuống, kiểu bề trên,
Trừ phi anh nhìn xuống
Để đỡ họ đứng lên.

80
Đừng quan trọng thái quá
Mọi việc ở đời này,
Một khi ta nghĩ nó
Vô thường như cánh mây.

81
Suy cho cùng, cuộc sống
Không nợ ta điều gì,
Nên có quyền quyết định
Cho, không cho ta gì.

82
Mỉm cười với người khác
Là cái đẹp ở đời.
Nhưng còn đẹp hơn thế
Là làm người khác cười.

83
Thỉnh thoảng trong cuộc sống
Nhớ ngồi yên một mình
Để tận hưởng cuộc sống
Được ngồi yên một mình.

84
Cho - đừng để lợi dụng.
Yêu - đừng vội yêu ngay.
Nghe - đừng mất chính kiến.
Tin - đừng quá thơ ngây.

85
Ở đời, khó khăn nhất -
Phải biết mình là ai.
Còn chấp nhận điều ấy
Là khó khăn thứ hai.

86
Bức xúc, muốn tâm sự,
Nên cẩn thận chọn người.
Không phải ai cũng bạn,
Cả khi họ mỉm cười.

87
Bạn có thể tha thứ
Để làm lại từ đầu.
Nhưng tha thứ lần sau
Thì quả là ngu ngốc.

88
Sự kiên nhẫn không phải
Là thời gian ta chờ,
Mà cách ta cư xử
Trong thời gian phải chờ.

89
Cuộc đời này quá ngắn
Để chúng ta buồn rầu
Vì những người vớ vẩn
Và những chuyện không đâu.

90
Ta chỉ sống một lần
Rồi rơi và giấc ngủ.
Nhưng sống tốt đời mình,
Một lần là quá đủ.

91
Ta không thể thay đổi
Những người xung quanh mình.
Nhưng vẫn có thể chọn
Người ta cho gần mình.

92
Rốt cục, ta phải chọn:
Tự đi hết cuộc đời,
Hay để người ta kéo
Đến tận cuối kiếp người.

93
Ta không thể để mất
Cái chưa có bao giờ.
Đừng buồn vì hiện thực
Không giống như ước mơ.

94
Người ngồi yên một chỗ,
Dẫu uyên bác, thông minh,
Sẽ không nghe tiếng xích
Đang trói buộc chân mình.

95
Một người mà có thể
Ngoái lại nhìn rất xa,
Người ấy càng có thể
Nhìn phía trước rất xa.

96
Bắt đầu một ngày mới,
Nên nhớ, bằng nụ cười.
Rồi mang nụ cười ấy
Đi đến với mọi người.

97
Có con đường ngắn nhất
Để vượt qua khó khăn,
Là đi xuyên qua nó.
Các đường khác không cần.

98
Một người dám thừa nhận
Sự yếu kém của mình,
Thì người ấy thực sự
Dũng cảm và trưởng thành.

99
Đừng sợ, khi ai đó
Ném gạch về phía anh.
Hãy bình tĩnh nhặt chúng,
Xây nền móng cho mình.

100
Sống chậm và giản dị -
Cách sống của người khôn.
Nó thực sự rất tốt
Cho thế xác, tâm hồn.

Thái Bá Tân

What is GOD ?

What is God  - A View of a Master of the Wisdom Letter No. 10 - (Transcribed from a copy in Mr. Sinnett's handwriting. Editor ) and which appeared in The Mahatma Letters to A.P.Sinnett Hume's article appeared in the November "The Theosophist".

NOTES BY MAHATMA K.H. ON A "PRELIMINARY CHAPTER" HEADED "GOD" BY HUME, INTENDED TO PREFACE AN EXPOSITION OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY (ABRIDGED). 

Received at Simla, 1881-? '82. 

Neither our philosophy nor ourselves believe in a God, least of all in one whose pronoun necessitates a capital G. Our philosophy falls under the definition of Hobbes. It is preeminently the science of effects by their causes and of causes by their effects, and since it is also the science of things deduced from first principle, as Bacon defines it, before we admit any such principle we must know it, and have no right to admit even its possibility. Your whole explanation is based upon one solitary admission made simply for argument's sake in October last. You were told that our knowledge was limited to this our solar system: ergo as philosophers who desired to remain worthy of the name we could not either deny or affirm the existence of what you termed a supreme, omnipotent, intelligent being of some sort beyond the limits of that solar system. But if such an existence is not absolutely impossible, yet unless the uniformity of nature's law breaks at those limits we maintain that it is highly improbable.

Nevertheless we deny most emphatically the position of agnosticism in this direction, and as regards the solar system. Our doctrine knows no compromises. It either affirms or denies, for it never teaches but that which it knows to be the truth. Therefore, we deny God both as philosophers and as Buddhists. We know there are planetary and other spiritual lives, and we know there is in our system no such thing as God, either personal or impersonal. Parabrahm is not a God, but absolute immutable law, and Ishwar is the effect of Avidya and Maya, ignorance based upon the great delusion. The word "God" was invented to designate the unknown cause of those effects which man has either admired or dreaded without understanding them, and since we claim and that we are able to prove what we claim -- i.e. the knowledge of that cause and causes we are in a position to maintain there is no God or Gods behind them. 

What is God - A View of a Master of the Wisdom –

The idea of God is not an innate but an acquired notion, and we have but one thing in common with theologies -- we reveal the infinite. But while we assign to all the phenomena that proceed from the infinite and limitless space, duration and motion, material, natural, sensible and known (to us at least) cause, the theists assign them spiritual, super-natural and unintelligible an un-known causes. The God of the Theologians is simply and imaginary power, un loup garou as d'Holbach expressed it -- a power which has never yet manifested itself. Our chief aim is to deliver humanity of this nightmare, to teach man virtue for its own sake, and to walk in life relying on himself instead of leaning on a theological crutch, that for countless ages was the direct cause of nearly all human misery. Pantheistic we may be called -- agnostic NEVER. If people are willing to accept and to regard as God our ONE LIFE immutable and unconscious in its eternity they may do so and thus keep to one more gigantic misnomer. But then they will have to say with Spinoza that there is not and that we cannot conceive any other substance than God; or as that famous and unfortunate philosopher says in his fourteenth proposition, "practer Deum neque dari neque concepi potest substantia" -- and thus become Pantheists . . . . who but a Theologian nursed on mystery and the most absurd super-naturalism can imagine a self existent being of necessity infinite and omnipresent outside the manifested boundless universe. The word infinite is but a negative which excludes the idea of bounds. It is evident that a being independent and omnipresent cannot be limited by anything which is outside of himself; that there can be nothing exterior to himself -- not even vacuum, then where is there room for matter? for that manifested universe even though the latter limited. If we ask the theist is your God vacuum, space or matter, they will reply no. And yet they hold that their God penetrates matter though he is not himself matter. When we speak of our One Life we also say that it penetrates, nay is the essence of every atom of matter; and that therefore it not only has correspondence with matter but has all its properties likewise, etc. -- hence is material, is matter itself. How can intelligence proceed or emanate from non-intelligence -- you kept asking last year. How could a highly intelligent humanity, man the crown of reason, be evolved out of blind unintelligent law or force! But once we reason on that line, I may ask in my turn, how could congenital idiots, non-reasoning animals, and the rest of "creation" have been created by or evoluted from, absolute Wisdom, if the latter is a thinking intelligent being, the author and ruler of the Universe? How? says Dr. Clarke in his examination of the proof of the existence of the Divinity. "God who hath made the eye, shall he not see? God who hath made the ear shall he not hear?" But according to this mode of reasoning they would have to admit that in creating an idiot God is an idiot; that he who made so many irrational beings, so many physical and moral monsters, must be an irrational being. . . . .

. . . . We are not Adwaitees, but our teaching respecting the one life is identical with that of the Adwaitee with regard to Parabrahm. And no true philosophically brained Adwaitee will ever call himself an agnostic, for he knows that he is Parabrahm and identical in every respect with the universal life and soul -- the macrocosm is the microcosm and he knows that there is no God apart from himself, no creator as no being. Having found Gnosis we cannot turn our backs on it and become agnostics. . . . . Were we to admit that even the highest Dyan Chohans are liable to err under a delusion, then there would be no reality for us indeed and the occult sciences would be as great a chimera as that God. If there is an absurdity in denying that which we do not know it is still more extravagant to assign to it unknown laws. 

According to logic "nothing" is that of which everything can truly be denied and nothing can truly be affirmed. The idea therefore either of a finite or infinite nothing is a contradiction in terms. And yet according to theologians "God, the self existent being is a most simple, unchangeable, incorruptible being; without parts, figure, motion, divisibility, or any other such properties as we find in matter. For all such things so plainly and necessarily imply finiteness in their very notion and are utterly inconsistent with complete infinity." Therefore the God here offered to the adoration of the XIXth century lacks every quality upon which man's mind is capable of fixing any judgment. What is this in fact but a being of whom they can affirm nothing that is not instantly contradicted. Their own Bible their Revelation destroys all the moral perceptions they heap upon him, unless indeed they call those qualities perfections that every other man's reason and common sense call imperfections, odious vices and brutal wickedness. Nay more he who reads our Buddhist scriptures written for the superstitious masses will fail to find in them a demon so vindictive, unjust, so cruel and so stupid as the celestial tyrant upon whom the Christians prodigally lavish their servile worship and on whom their theologians heap those perfections that are contradicted on every page of their Bible. Truly and veritably your theology has created her God but to destroy him piecemeal. Your church is the fabulous Saturn, who begets children but to devour them.

(The Universal Mind) -- A few reflections and arguments ought to support every new idea -- for instance we are sure to be taken to task for the following apparent contradictions. (1) We deny the existence of a thinking conscious God, on the grounds that such a God must either be conditioned, limited and subject to change, therefore not infinite, or (2) if he is represented to us as an eternal unchangeable and independent being, with not a particle of matter in him, then we answer that it is no being but an immutable blind principle, a law. And yet, they will say, we believe in Dyans, or Planetaries ("spirits" also), and endow them with a universal mind, and this must be explained. 

Our reasons may be briefly summed up thus:

(1) We deny the absurd proposition that there can be, even in a boundless and eternal universe -- two infinite eternal and omni-present existences.

 (2) Matter we know to be eternal, i.e., having had no beginning (a) because matter is Nature herself (b) because that which cannot annihilate itself and is indestructible exists necessarily -- and therefore it could not begin to be, nor can it cease to be (c) because the accumulated experience of countless ages, and that of exact science show to us matter (or nature) acting by her own peculiar energy, of which not an atom is ever in an absolute state of rest, and therefore it must have always existed, i.e., its materials ever changing form, combinations and properties, but its principles or elements being absolutely indestructible.

 (3) As to God -- since no one has ever or at any time seen him or it -- unless he or it is the very essence and nature of this boundless eternal matter, its energy and motion , we cannot regard him as either eternal or infinite or yet self existing. We refuse to admit a being or an existence of which we know absolutely nothing; because (a) there is no room for him in the presence of that matter whose undeniable properties and qualities we know thoroughly well (b) because if he or it is but a part of that matter it is ridiculous to maintain that he is the mover and ruler of that of which he is but a dependent part and (c) because if they tell us that God is a self existent pure spirit independent of matter -- an extra-cosmic deity, we answer that admitting even the possibility of such an impossibility, i.e., his existence, we yet hold that a purely immaterial spirit cannot be an intelligent conscious ruler nor can he have any of the attributes bestowed upon him by theology and thus such a God becomes again but a blind force. 

Intelligence as found in our Dyan Chohans, is a faculty that can appertain but to organized or animated being -- however imponderable or rather invisible the materials of their organizations. Intelligence requires the necessity of thinking; to think one must have ideas; ideas suppose senses which are physical material, and how can anything material belong to pure spirit? If it be objected that thought cannot be a property of matter, we will ask the reason why? We must have an unanswerable proof of this assumption, before we can accept it. Of the theologian we would enquire what was there to prevent his God, since he is the alleged creator of all -- to endow matter with the faculty of thought; and when answered that evidently it has not pleased Him to do so, that it is a mystery as well as an impossibility, we would insist upon being told why it is more impossible that matter should produce spirit and thought, than spirit or the thought of God should produce and create matter.

We do not bow our heads in the dust before the mystery of mind -- for we have solved it ages ago. Rejecting with contempt the theistic theory we reject as much the automaton theory, teaching that states of consciousness are produced by the marshalling of the molecules of the brain; and we feel as little respect for that other hypothesis -- the production of molecular motion by consciousness. Then what do we believe in? Well, we believe in the much laughed at phlogiston (see article "What is force and what is matter?" Theosophist, September), and in what some natural philosophers would call nisus the incessant though perfectly imperceptible (to the ordinary senses) motion or efforts one body is making on another -- the pulsations of inert matter - its life. The bodies of the Planetary spirits are formed of that which Priestley and others called Phlogiston and for which we have another name - this essence in its highest seventh state forming that matter of which the organisms of the highest and purest Dyans are composed, and in its lowest or densest form (so impalpable yet that science calls it energy and force) serving as a cover to the Planetaries of the 1st or lowest degree. In other words we believe in MATTER alone, in matter as visible nature and matter in its invisibility as the invisible omnipresent omnipotent Proteus with its unceasing motion which is its life, and which nature draws from herself since she is the great whole outside of which nothing can exist. For as Bellinger truly asserts "motion is a manner of existence that flows necessarily out of the essence of matter; that matter moves by its own peculiar energies; that its motion is due to the force which is inherent in itself; that the variety of motion and the phenomena that result proceed from the diversity of the properties of the qualities and of the combinations which are originally found in the primitive matter" of which nature is the assemblage and of which your science knows less than one of our Tibetan Yak-drivers of Kant's metaphysics. 

 The existence of matter then is a fact; the existence of motion is another fact, their self existence and eternity or indestructibility is a third fact. And the idea of pure spirit as a Being or an Existence -- give it whatever name you will - is a chimera, a gigantic absurdity.

Our ideas on Evil. Evil has no existence per se and is but the absence of good and exists but for him who is made its victim. It proceeds from two causes, and no more than good is it an independent cause in nature. Nature is destitute of goodness or malice; she follows only immutable laws when she either gives life and joy, or sends suffering [and] death, and destroys what she has created. Nature has an antidote for every poison and her laws a reward for every suffering. The butterfly devoured by a bird becomes that bird, and the little bird killed by an animal goes into a higher form. It is the blind law of necessity and the eternal fitness of things, and hence cannot be called Evil in Nature. The real evil proceeds from human intelligence and its origin rests entirely with reasoning man who dissociates himself from Nature. Humanity then alone is the true source of evil. Evil is the exaggeration of good, the progeny of human selfishness and greediness. Think profoundly and you will find that save death - which is no evil but a necessary law, and accidents which will always find their reward in a future life - the origin of every evil whether small or great is in human action, in man whose intelligence makes him the one free agent in Nature. It is not nature that creates diseases, but man. The latter's mission and destiny in the economy of nature is to die his natural death brought by old age; save accident, neither a savage nor a wild (free) animal die of disease. Food, sexual relations, drink, are all natural necessities of life; yet excess in them brings on disease, misery, suffering, mental and physical, and the latter are transmitted as the greatest evils to future generations, the progeny of the culprits. 

Ambition, the desire of securing happiness and comfort for those we love, by obtaining honours and riches, are praiseworthy natural feelings but when they transform man into an ambitious cruel tyrant, a miser, a selfish egotist they bring untold misery on those around him; on nations as well as on individuals. All this then - food, wealth, ambition, and a thousand other things we have to leave unmentioned, becomes the source and cause of evil whether in its abundance or through its absence. Become a glutton, a debauchee, a tyrant, and you become the originator of diseases, of human suffering and misery. Lack all this and you starve, you are despised as a nobody and the majority of the herd, your fellow men, make of you a sufferer your whole life. Therefore it is neither nature nor an imaginary Deity that has to be blamed, but human nature made vile by selfishness. Think well over these few words; work out every cause of evil you can think of and trace it to its origin and you will have solved one-third of the problem of evil. And now, after making due allowance for evils that are natural and cannot be avoided, -- and so few are they that I challenge the whole host of Western metaphysicians to call them evils or to trace them directly to an independent cause -- I will point out the greatest, the chief cause of nearly two thirds of the evils that pursue humanity ever since that cause became a power. It is religion under whatever form and in whatsoever nation. It is the sacerdotal caste, the priesthood and the churches; it is in those illusions that man looks upon as sacred, that he has to search out the source of that multitude of evils which is the great curse of humanity and that almost overwhelms mankind. 

Ignorance created Gods and cunning took advantage of the opportunity. Look at India and look at Christendom and Islam, at Judaism and Fetichism. It is priestly imposture that rendered these Gods so terrible to man; it is religion that makes of him the selfish bigot, the fanatic that hates all mankind out of his own sect without rendering him any better or more moral for it. It is belief in God and Gods that makes two-thirds of humanity the slaves of a handful of those who deceive them under the false pretence of saving them. Is not man ever ready to commit any kind of evil if told that his God or Gods demand the crime?; voluntary victim of an illusionary God, the abject slave of his crafty ministers. The Irish, Italian and Slavonian peasant will starve himself and see his family starving and naked to feed and clothe his padre and pope. For two thousand years India groaned under the weight of caste, Brahmins alone feeding on the fat of the land, and to-day the followers of Christ and those of Mahomet are cutting each other's throats in the names of and for the greater glory of their respective myths. Remember the sum of human misery will never be diminished unto that day when the better portion of humanity destroys in the name of Truth, morality, and universal charity, the altars of their false gods.

If it is objected that we too have temples, we too have priests and that our lamas also live on charity . . . let them know that the objects above named have in common with their Western equivalents, but the name. Thus in our temples there is neither a god nor gods worshipped, only the thrice sacred memory of the greatest as the holiest man that ever lived. If our lamas to honour the fraternity of the Bhikkhus established by our blessed master himself, go out to be fed by the laity, the latter often to the number of 5 to 25,000 is fed and taken care of by the Samgha (the fraternity of lamaic monks) the lamasery providing for the wants of the poor, the sick, the afflicted. Our lamas accept food, never money, and it is in those temples that the origin of evil is preached and impressed upon the people. There they are taught the four noble truths - ariya sakka, and the chain of causation, (the 12 nid[ci]anas) gives them a solution of the problem of the origin and destruction of suffering. 

Read the Mahavagga and try to understand not with the prejudiced Western mind but the spirit of intuition and truth what the Fully Enlightened one says in the 1st Khandhaka. Allow me to translate it for you.

"At the time the blessed Buddha was at Uruvella on the shores of the river Nerovigara as he rested under the Boddhi tree of wisdom after he had become Sambuddha, at the end of the seventh day having his mind fixed on the chain of causation he spake thus: 'from Ignorance spring the samkharas of threefold nature -- productions of body, of speech, of thought. From the samkharas springs consciousness, from consciousness springs name and form, from this spring the six regions (of the six senses the seventh being the property of but the enlightened); from these springs contact from this sensation; from this springs thirst (or desire, Kama, tanha) from thirst attachment, existence, birth, old age and death, grief, lamentation, suffering, dejection and despair. Again by the destruction of ignorance, the Sankharas are destroyed, and their consciousness name and form, the six regions, contact, sensation, thirst, attachment (selfishness), existence, birth, old age, death, grief, lamentation, suffering, dejection, and despair are destroyed. Such is the cessation of this whole mass of suffering." 

Knowing this the blessed one uttered this solemn utterance.

"When the real nature of things becomes clear to the meditating Bikshu, then all his doubts fade away since he has learned what is that nature and what its cause. From ignorance spring all the evils. From knowledge comes the cessation of this mass of misery, and then the meditating Brahmana stands dispelling the hosts of Mara like the sun that illuminates the sky." 

             

Meditation here means the superhuman (not supernatural) qualities, or arhatship in its highest of spiritual powers. Copied out Simla, Sept. 28, 1882. 

http://www.theosophical.ca/otherdocuments/WhatIsGod_APSinnett.pdf

Reincarnation by Annie Besant

THERE are but three explanations of human inequalities, whether of faculties, of opportunities, of circumstances : 

1. Special Creation by God, implying that man is helpless, his destiny being controlled by an arbitrary and incalculable will. 

2. Heredity, as suggested by science, implying an equal helplessness on man's part, he being the result of a past over which he has no control.

 3. Reincarnation, implying that man can become master of his destiny, he being the result of his own individual past, being what he has made himself.

Evolution is taken for granted in everything except in the life of spiritual intelligence, called man; he has no individual past, although he has an individual endless future. The character he brings with him- on which more than on anything else his destiny on earth depends- is, on this hypothesis, specially created for him by God, and imposed on him without any choice of his own; out of the lucky bag of creation he may draw a prize or a blank, the blank being a doom of misery; such as it is he must take it.

Further, science can offer no explanation of the facts of high intelligence and saintly life. The child of a saint may be a profligate; the child of a genius may be a dolt. Genius "comes out of the blue". 

Reincarnation restores justice to God and power to man. Every human spirit enters into life a germ, without knowledge, without conscience, without discrimination. By experience, pleasant and painful, man gathers materials, and builds them into mental and moral faculties. Thus the character with which he is born is self-made, and marks the stage he has reached in his long evolution. The good disposition, the fine capacities, the noble nature, are the spoils of many a hard-fought field, the wages of heavy and arduous toil. The reverse marks an early stage of growth, the small development of the spiritual germ.

 MEMORY 

No question is more often heard, when reincarnation is mentioned, than: "If I have been here before, why do I not remember it?" A little consideration of facts will answer the question.

First of all, let us note the fact that we forget more of our present lives than we remember. Many people cannot remember learning to read; yet the fact that they can read proves the learning. Incidents of childhood and youth have faded from our memory, yet they have left traces on our character. A fall in babyhood is forgotten, yet the victim is none the less a cripple. And this although we are using the same body in which the forgotten events were experienced.

If this be true of experiences encountered in the present body, how much more must it be true of experiences encountered in former bodies, which died and decayed many centuries ago. Our present body and brain have had no share in those far-off happenings; how should memory assert itself through them ? Our permanent body, which remains with us throughout the cycle of reincarnation, is the spiritual body; the lower garments fall away and return to their elements ere we can become reincarnated. The new mental, astral and physical matter in which we are re-clothed for a new life on earth receives from the spiritual intelligence, garbed only in the spiritual body, not the experiences of the past but the qualities, tendencies and capacities which have been made out of those experiences. Our conscience, our instinctive response to emotional and intellectual appeals, our recognition of the force of a logical argument, our assent to fundamental principles of right and wrong, these are the traces of past experiences. A man of low intellectual type cannot "see" a logical or mathematical proof; a man of low moral type cannot "feel" the compelling force of a high moral ideal.

GROWTH OF CAPACITY 

When a philosophy or a science is quickly grasped and applied, when an art is mastered without study, memory is there in power though past facts of learning are forgotten; as Plato said, it is a reminiscence. When we feel intimate with a stranger on first meeting, memory is there. Whenever we shrink back with strong repulsion from another stranger, memory is there, the spirit's recognition of an ancient foe. 

These affinities, these warnings, come from the undying spiritual intelligence which is yourself: we remember, though working in the body we cannot impress it on our brain memory. The mind, body, the brain, are new; the spirit furnishes the mind with the results of the past, not with the memory of its events.

As a merchant, closing the year's ledger and opening a new one does not enter in the new one all the items of the old, but only its balances, so does the spirit hand on to the new brain his judgements on the experiences of a life that is closed, the conclusions to which he has come, the decisions at which he has arrived. This is the stock handed on to the new life, the mental furniture for its new dwelling - a real memory. 

SPIRITUAL GROWTH

 Moreover, memory of past lives can be gained. But the gaining is a matter of steady effort, of prolonged meditation, whereby the restless mind, ever running outwards, may be controlled and rendered quiescent, so that it may be sensitive and responsive to the spirit and receive from him the memory of the past. Only as we can hear the still small voice of the spirit may the story of the past be unrolled, for the spirit alone can remember, and cast down the rays of his memory to enlighten the darkness of the fleeting lower nature to which he is temporarily attached. 

Pain follows on mistakes and is ever remedial; strength is developed by struggle; we reap after every sowing the inevitable result, happiness growing out of the right, sorrow out of the wrong. 

A high moral standard, though placing a man at a disadvantage in the struggle for existence, perhaps even leading to the sacrifice of his physical life, builds a noble character for his future lives and shapes him to become a servant of the nation. 

In every case the individual past explains the individual present, and when the laws of growth are known and obeyed a man can build with a sure hand his future destiny, shaping his growth in lives of ever increasing beauty until he reaches the stature of the Perfect Man. 

There is no religion higher than truth.

  

http://www.theosophical.ca/otherdocuments/Reincarnation_AnnieBesant.pdf