Madame Blavatsky on Theosophy and Asceticism

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky · Blavatsky Speaks Series · 7 pages

Seven pages from the Key to Theosophy, cast as the dialogue the whole book uses, and the plainest answer in the library to a question the Society was constantly asked. The Enquirer has heard that the rules require all members to be vegetarians, celibates and rigid ascetics, and wants the truth once for all. The reply is unambiguous: the rules require nothing of the kind, and the Society does not even expect, far less require, that any member be an ascetic in any way — except, if you call it asceticism, that they should try to benefit other people and be unselfish.

The Enquirer presses, sensibly, on the evidence: many members are strict vegetarians and openly intend to remain unmarried, and this is most often true of those most prominent in the Society's work. That, comes the answer, is only natural, because most of the really earnest workers belong to the Inner Section. Asked whether ascetic practices are required there, the answer is again no — not required, not enjoined — followed by the explanation of the Society's general view of asceticism from which the vegetarian question is then approached. It is a short document, and the one to read before any of the longer discussions of practice in this library.

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