---

Compassion - The Spirit of Truth

By Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

---

Seek Darkness With The Lamp Of Faith

Too many already wear their faith, truly, as Shakespeare puts it, “but as the fashion of his hat,” ever changing “with the next block.” — Helena Petrovna Blavatsky 1 

Come, quenchless Hope, come, Faith that moveth mountains, Come, Love long-suffering, eager to forgive, Let flow your threefold everlasting fountains, And bid the dying nations drink and live! — James Rhoades 2

 Bid, then, the tender light of faith to shine By which alone the mortal heart is led Unto the thinking of the thought divine. — George Santayana 3

Faith is an aspiration and a desire. Hope and Charity are her sisters. To define what we are unacquainted with is presumptuous ignorance; to affirm positively what one does not know is to lie. So is faith an aspiration and a desire. So be it; I desire it to be so; such is the last word of all professions of faith. Faith, hope, and charity are three inseparable sisters that they can be taken one for another.4 . . . Mercy, Charity and Hope are the three goddesses who preside over that [higher] “life.” 5 . . . Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 6 

Faith alone can open the Golden Gate. For the Keys of the Golden Gate leading to the Infinite Truth, lie buried deep, and the gate itself is enclosed in a mist which clears up only before the ardent rays of implicit Faith. Faith alone, one grain of which as large as a mustard-seed, according the words of Christ, can lift a mountain, is able to find out how simple becomes the Cabala to the initiate, once that he has succeeded in conquering the first abstruse difficulties.7 Faith is trust, and love, and confidence. Faith, Belief, and Reliance in or on others, Doubt, Suspicion, and Misgiving about others, are respectively allied to, and degrees of, Confidence and Distrust. . . . Emotionally, Faith belongs to the side of Love and Unity; Doubt to the opposite. Belief is the ready acceptance of a person as what he appears to be. A settled habit of Trust assumes a good motive whatever the external appearance, and acts thereon fearlessly, sometimes recklessly. So, Suspicion regards the outer appearance as being a cloak for some mischievous purpose, and, often falsely, sees an evil motive lurking behind a harmless exterior.1 Against a settled habit of Suspicion, no goodness is safe; the most innocent action may be supplied with a motive which transforms it into guilt.2 

It is the cornerstone and conviction of every rational mind. If the senses of those [intelligent, rational] persons are not to be trusted, then what else can be trusted? What better test of truth have we? How can we be sure of anything we hear, or even ourselves see? How are the most ordinary affairs of life to be conducted and relied upon? As a mesmeriser remarked to a sceptic:

“If the rule, which the objectors to mesmeric phenomena persist in applying to them, were to be enforced universally, all the business of life must come to a stand.”

Indeed no man could put faith in any assertion of any other man; the administration of justice itself must fail, because evidence would become impossible, and the whole world would go upside down.3

Intuition is the eye of the soul. So, the glorious truth covered up in the hieratic writings of the ancient papyri can be revealed only to him who possesses the faculty of intuition — which, if we call reason the eye of the mind, may be defined as the eye of the soul.4

False Faith is but the misapplication of intuition. . . . The latter shows to us unerringly a general truth, in this, or that, universal proposition, which the former proceeds to objectivise and disfigure, according to the canons of our objective plane. Intuition is divine, but faith is human.1 

“Faith is not reason’s labour, but repose.” 2 

We are a “Universal Brotherhood,” let it be remembered. Our Society represents no one faith or race, but every faith as every race;

True Faith blossoms from the realisation that All is One. Faith in God is the realisation “I am He,” for, basically, religious faith is the certainty of the existence of the Self, and hence of the triumph of the Permanent, the Conscious, the Blissful, over all that is other than these, however strong for the time the “other” may be. Such faith is sometimes said to be “belief without proof,” but this is only because the Self is its own proof, incapable of being strengthened or weakened; other “beliefs without proof” are but reflections and copies, and therefore generally weak and defective, of this primal faith. Again, faith in Self-existence is the sure internal witness and supporter of faith in immortality. Faith in other words is the refusal of the Self to submit to the narrow bonds of one set of material limitations. So, faith in a man is the recognition that the same Self is in him as in oneself, and that, in consequence, he will act as one-self would act. Similarly, corresponding Disbeliefs imply the presence in one’s consciousness in an overpowering degree, of the pseudo-existence of the Not-Self, of its uncertainties, its pains, its limitations and its accompanying ills generally. The emotional aspect of these faiths and disbeliefs appears in the powerful influence they exercise on the temperament . . . and on the conduct in life, and towards others, of the holder of them.

Thomas Taylor renders νοερα επιβολη as intuition through the projecting energies of the intellect. “All the Gods are venerable and beautiful, and their beauty is immense. What else however is it but intellect through which they are such? and because intellect energizes in them in so great a degree as to render them visible [by its light]?” 1 

This is how the spiritual mind impresses divine knowledge upon the psychic and, though its provenance may not yet be apparent to latter, the heart knows it to be true. Pistis-Sophia is a combination of two Greek substantives, usually translated Faith and Wisdom. But HP Blavatsky plainly shows that Faith in the modern sense is quite an inadequate rendering of the term Pistis. It is better described as Intuitional Knowledge, or knowledge not yet manifested to the mere intellect, though felt by the Soul to be true. This definition leaves the way open for dogmatists to say that it means precisely what they call faith, and the genuine enquirer needs to be careful in accepting dogmatic definitions of the soul and intellect and to beware of thinking that Pistis has anything to do with “believing” things that are not otherwise known. “Faith” is too often merely another name for “selfpersuasion,” which may not be, but usually is, delusion, in one of its fascinating forms. . . . In the drama of Pistis-Sophia and her sufferings 2 it is clear that her unshakeable intuition that she will be saved by her divine part is the link that enables that divine part to save her. It is the actual testimony that she is not yet finally lost, and in the end it is fully vindicated. Job, another drama of initiation, teaches the same lesson in an ancient Egyptian setting.

Beware! Your own faith will be fake if you have been influenced, even unconsciously, by someone else’s beliefs. Do not adopt any conclusions merely because they are uttered by one in whom you have confidence, but adopt them when they coincide with your intuition. To be even unconsciously deluded by the influence of another is to have a counterfeit faith.4

Learn to think for yourself. [Faith] is the intuitional feeling — “that is true.” So, formulate to yourself certain things as true that you feel to be true, and then increase your faith in them.1

How is one to know when one gets genuine occult information from the Self within? By constant introspection, by auditing insights to judge whether they are in keeping with philosophy, and by applying the same philosophy in everyday life. Intuition must be developed and the matter judged from the true philosophical basis, for if it is contrary to true general rules it is wrong. It has to be known from a deep and profound analysis by which we find out what is from egotism alone and what is not; if it is due to egotism, then it is not from the Spirit and is untrue. The power to know does not come from book-study nor from mere philosophy, but mostly from the actual practice of altruism in deed, word, and thought; for that practice purifies the covers of the soul and permits that light to shine down into the brain-mind. As the brain-mind is the receiver in the waking state, it has to be purified from senseperception, and the truest way to do this is by combining philosophy with the highest outward and inward virtue.2

Faith without works is dead . . . A faith without substantiality is merely a dream; a science without true knowledge is an illusion; a merely sentimental desire without any active exercise for the attainment of truth is useless. A person living in such dreams and fancies about ideals which he never attempts to realise, dreams only of treasures which he does not possess. He is like a person wasting his life in studying the map of a country in which he might travel, but never making a start. A merely ideal religion, which is never realised and does not substantially nourish the soul, is only imaginary and serves but to amuse; 3

Only by love, faith, and selfsacrifice the soul grows, If [the pupil] finds himself not clearly understanding [the doctrine of the teacher], then he should with faith try to understand, for if he by love and faith vibrates into the higher meaning of his teacher, his mind is thereby raised, and thus greater progress is gained.1

The work which Faith requires is a continual Self-Sacrifice, which means a continual striving to overcome the animal and selfish nature, and this victory of the high over the low is not accomplished by that which is low, but can only take place through the power of divine Love, which means the recognition of the higher nature in man and its practical application in daily life. This is the kind of love of which the great mystic of the 17th century, John Scheffler, speaks when he says:

“Faith without love aye makes the greatest roar and din, The cask sounds loudest when there is nought within.” 2

And feels the Light within. And this light [the true Christos or true Buddha] can only be made known by its works — faith in it having to remain ever blind in all, save in the man himself who feels that light within his soul.3 

For faith there is no middle ground. It must be either completely blind, or it will see too much.4