To Light a Thousand Lamps - The Theosophical Society

156 / TO LIGHT A THOUSAND LAMPS
examine our motive, to be certain it is truly selfless. We all
have too much selfishness in our spiritual desires as well as
in our material natures, and selfishness in the higher principles
is far more tenacious than in the lower nature where it
is comparatively easy to overcome.
The theosophic purpose, then, is manifold, and no one
was more aware than H. P. Blavatsky of the magnitude of
the task before her. She lived and worked in the tradition of
those who labor ceaselessly to awaken humanity to its innate
grandeur. ‘‘By their fruits shall ye know them.’’ With every
decade she is becoming more widely accepted as an opener
of the gateways of the soul. By her retelling of the archaic
wisdom-teachings she revealed the inspired source of the many
traditions and scriptures of mankind, and unfolded the
wondrous drama of the genesis and evolution of worlds and
of man. To many her greatest gift was her pointing once
again to the ‘‘path,’’ the sacred way of inner mastery — not
for oneself, but for the uplifting of all beings everywhere.
Her lasting appeal to men and women of compassion is to
work actively for the realization of universal brotherhood so
that eventually every people, nation, and race will be free to
pursue its individual destiny in harmony and at peace with
all others.