Conduct and Duties of a True Theosophist

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky · Theosophy and Theosophists Series · 8 pages

Eight pages carrying the piece she wrote to launch a journal — first published in The Vahan volume I number 1 on 1 December 1890, pages 1 to 3, and republished in the Collected Writings volume XII under the title "Why the Vahan". The frontispiece is by David Valdez. *It answers a practical question and then turns into a statement of principle*, which is why it stands in this section rather than among the doctrinal files.

The title of the new paper is explained first, and the explanation is itself a piece of teaching. Vahan means a vehicle; in theosophical metaphysics the term denotes a basis, a bearer more substantial than what it bears — Buddhi, the spiritual soul, being the Vahan of Ātma, the purely immaterial principle, as in physiology the brain is the supposed physical vehicle of super-physical thought. The little fortnightly paper was thus to be the bearer of theosophical thought and the recorder of theosophical activities. The finances are stated with some frankness: the enterprise is no speculation but an additional expense the meagre funds can ill afford, undertaken because duty urges it, and the journal is to go free of charge to the British branches and to unattached Fellows. Her reasoning about who pays is characteristically blunt — the karma of those who could subscribe and will not is their own, but the duty of keeping all the Fellows in touch and au courant is the Society's, since those cut off from what goes on at the theosophical centres soon lose interest and remain Fellows in name only. The last part is the passage the file takes its title from. A true theosophist must have no personal ends to serve, no favourite hobby to propagate, no special doctrine to enforce or defend; to merit the name one must above all be an altruist, ever ready to help foe or friend equally, ready to act rather than to speak, and to urge others to action while never losing an opportunity to work oneself.

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