A Thought from a Student's Notebook
Over a period of twelve years the writer has followed a thought through several phases of development until it has at last become, for her, a manifested, and continually manifesting, truth about Theosophy. The thought in its incipiency was in the form of a question: Can the knowledge gained through the study of Theosophy bring about the healing of physical ills?
We, who are students of the Wisdom-Religion, have been told by all our teachers down through the ages that we are able to form a question because the answer is known to us. We form the question from out our experiences, from out our knowledge — the experience and knowledge gained in other incarnations as well as in this one. We form the questions from the truths that we have builded into ourselves; we demand of ourselves the answers.
Our present teacher has advised us to brood over the thoughts and questions and ideas which stir our minds as we study the deeper teachings. We find that in the bibles — the scriptures of the Egyptians, of the Christians — the self-same teaching is given. "Ponder these things in your hearts" said the Teacher, Jesus, "that ye may know them of yourselves."
It is only at the end of twelve years of study that the writer offers to others the answer to the question she put to herself shortly after becoming a member of the student groups at Point Loma. The question cannot have occurred to her alone. The answer from her heart-mind and the experiences of the last several years noted by her brain-mind may be of service to companion-students. For, of herself, the writer has come to know that physical healing may be one of the fruits of the Tree of Knowledge.
Let it not be thought, however, that a cure is promised, or that the writer is advocating the refusal to use medicines when prescribed by a qualified physician, or suggesting the denial of the existence of pain, or the blinding of oneself to such conditions as broken bones and wounds. Above all do not read into any sentence written here the meaning that cure or palliation can be experienced in a given time or, indeed, that these can be secured at all if cure or palliation alone is sought. On the contrary to embrace Theosophy, to study the Wisdom-Religion for personal gain, is to deny oneself the power to understand what one studies; it is to make it impossible to be a Theosophist in the full meaning of that word.
No; cure or palliation comes about not as a goal to be reached but as a natural growth from the seeds of study, from the growing of implanted thought, from the maturing of the seedling-idea, as any fruit comes naturally to ripened glory from seed or planting or seedling-tree. Cure of physical ills is a definite growth in knowledge when growth alone is the goal sought.
Put on the armor of the gods — that is the course to follow. And think you that we can fit that armor and remain as we are? Dwell with the gods — that is the course to follow. And think you that we can pull the Gods to our plane of consciousness and thus dwell with them? Work to show forth impersonal love of the being who suffers the physical ill wrenching at our hearts. Work to free mankind from the downward pull of coarse ideas and uncontrolled action. Work without ceasing to follow the small old path, and turn ever and always to help others along the Way.
Give of yourself; stop the idle word; hush the bitter whisper; see your suffering, your sorrow, as the knife that frees the juices from the imprisoning skin of the fruit, as the heel of those who, in the wine-press, free the wine from the purpling grape.
It would be quite possible for the writer to show the inter-relation between The Way and the welfare of the Wayfarer, for in her notebook there could have been set down a number of names and the apparent healings resulting from the loving interest shown by herself and other students toward the ailing friend. But the writer has never understood the teachings of Theosophy to mean that one should prate of benefits received but only that one should be happy in the knowledge that the teachings bring enlightenment on all planes of consciousness. As the Teacher Jesus bade: Go thou, and tell no one. That seems the course to follow in this matter.
It is not the intention of this student to class Theosophy as a cure-all for dis-ease, nor to class those students who together with herself have sought knowledge of this matter, as having Power to bring about healing. Rather the object of the writer is to hearten those who aspire to the Kingdom That Is Within by offering them yet one more key to still another Mansion in The Father's House.