vol. xxx, no. 4 april 1926 universal brotherhood - a fact in nature

THE THEOSOPHICAL PATH
but love, compassion, brotherliness, that is, mutual good feeling, friend-
ship, helpfulness - and it is a law of the Universe that we shall come
together again and again until love and compassion and sympathy and
friendship take the place of hatred. For, as Gautama, the Buddha, de-
clared: "Hatred never ceases by hatred at any time; hatred ceases
only by love."
A great Teacher once said that "we are continually peopling our
current in space" by every thought that goes out from us. We are too
apt to regard ourselves as limited within the boundaries of our physical
bodies, or to regard our influence as extending no farther than our im-
mediate surroundings, the sound of our voices, the visible example of
our lives, the destination of a letter or the circulation of our thoughts
in a printed book.
But if we consider further we shall realize that this is by no means
a complete statement of the facts, though we are too prone to act as
though it were. Each one of the many or the few who comes under the
influence of our voice, our example, or the expression of our thought, is
himself a center from which radiates the influence of his life; and through
the influence of our lives, our thoughts, our example, his life has become
modified, in however small, infinitesimal a degree, it may seem to us,
or perhaps in some great degree; and through that modification his
influence on the lives of all others whom he may contact is modified
also and so on and on in ever widening circles.
But there is a still deeper basis for the statement, "Brotherhood is
a fact in Nature"; namely that it is based in that which is the origin
of Nature. For while Nature, as said, is that which is manifested, that
which is born; its origin, that from which it comes, is Divinity itself.
Nature is but the garment of Divinity, not Divinity itself; it is the veil
of Isis, not Isis, though Isis is 'the mother of all living,' 'the one that is
and was and shall be,' 'whose veil no mortal has raised.' Indeed, to stand
in the presence of Divinity, to gaze upon Isis unveiled -speaking alle-
gorically, of course,- one must have undertaken the supreme task of
self-conquest, self-knowledge, and not only undertaken the task but
completed it; he must have conquered self, he must have achieved self-
knowledge, attained immortality, and become one with Divinity.
It is one of the fundamental teachings of Theosophy that all
Nature, all life, is spiritual in essence and origin. H. P. Blavatsky de- ,
clares in The Secret Doctri~ze (I, 8-9) :
"There is no difference between the Christian Apostle's 'In Him we live and move
and have our being,' and the I-IindB Rishi's 'The Universe lives in, proceeds from, and will
return to, Brahma.' " '