Morality as Harmony with Universal Law

Mohini Mohun Chatterji · Buddhas and Initiates Series · 9 pages

First published in The Theosophist in November 1883 and reprinted in Blavatsky Collected Writings V; later printings made clear that the author was Mohini Mohun Chatterji rather than Blavatsky. The article answers an objection raised in several quarters — that Pantheism, the term taken to include Esoteric Buddhism, Advaiti Vedantism and similar systems, cannot supply a sound basis of morality, since the philosophical assimilation of meum and tuum must be followed by their practical confusion and so sanction theft and robbery.

Chatterji's reply is that the objection betrays an almost complete ignorance of the systems objected to. The ultimate sanction of morality is a desire for happiness and escape from misery, but schools differ in their estimate of happiness: exoteric religions base morality on hope of reward and fear of punishment at the hands of an omnipotent ruler, or in later growths on gratitude for benefits received. He takes his example of hope-and-fear morality from the biblical text that he who gives to the poor lends to the Lord, making the duty depend on prudential motives, and sets against it the Mahabharata on the man who desires a return for his good deeds. The title's position — morality as man's own effort to harmonise with universal law — follows from that contrast.

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