Liber L X XI
The Voice of the Silence
By H.P. Blavatsky
BEING CHOSEN FRAGMENTS FROM THE "BOOK OF THE GOLDEN
PRECEPTS."
FOR THE DAILY USE OF LANOOS (DISCIPLES).
TRANSLATED AND ANNOTATED BY "H.P.B."
Devotional classic of theosophy, concerning the seeker's inner awakening and
development, leading to a choice between the compassionate path and the path for
self alone.
A verbatim reproduction of the original edition of 1889; Theosophical
University Press electronic version ISBN 1-55700-033-6 (print version also
available). Diacritical marks have been omitted from this electronic edition due
to current limitations of ASCII format and for ease of searching.
PREFACE
FRAGMENT I.
THE VOICE OF THE SILENCE (33K)
FRAGMENT II.
THE TWO PATHS (29K)
FRAGMENT III.
THE SEVEN PORTALS (43K)
Click on numbers in parentheses to hyperlink to appropriate Glossary entry
-- click on Glossary entry number to return to previous text location.
TUP Online Menu
Theosophical University Press, publishing and distributing quality
theosophical literature since 1886: PO Box C, Pasadena, CA 91109-7107 USA;
e-mail: tupress@theosociety.org; voice: (626) 798-3378; fax: (626) 798-4749.
Free printed catalog available on request. Visit the on-line
TUP Catalog.
THE following pages are derived from "The Book of the Golden Precepts," one
of the works put into the hands of mystic students in the East. The knowledge of
them is obligatory in that school, the teachings of which are accepted by many
Theosophists. Therefore, as I know many of these Precepts by heart, the work of
translating has been relatively an easy task for me.
It is well known that, in India, the methods of psychic development differ
with the Gurus (teachers or masters), not only because of their belonging to
different schools of philosophy, of which there are six, but because every Guru
has his own system, which he generally keeps very secret. But beyond the
Himalayas the method in the Esoteric Schools does not differ, unless the Guru is
simply a Lama, but little more learned than those he teaches.
The work from which I here translate forms part of the same series as that
from which the "Stanzas" of the Book of Dzyan were taken, on which
the Secret Doctrine is based. Together with the great mystic work
called Paramartha, which, the legend of Nagarjuna tells
us, was delivered to the great Arhat by the Nagas or "Serpents" (in truth a name
given to the ancient Initiates), the "Book of the Golden Precepts" claims the
same origin. Yet its maxims and ideas, however noble and original, are often
found under different forms in Sanskrit works, such as the Dnyaneshwari,
that superb mystic treatise in which Krishna describes to Arjuna in
glowing colours the condition of a fully illumined Yogi; and again in certain
Upanishads. This is but natural, since most, if not all, of the greatest Arhats,
the first followers of Gautama Buddha were Hindus and Aryans, not Mongolians,
especially those who emigrated into Tibet. The works left by Aryasanga alone are
very numerous.
The original Precepts are engraved on thin oblong squares;
copies very often on discs. These discs, or plates, are generally preserved on
the altars of the temples attached to centres where the so-called
"contemplative" or Mahayana (Yogacharya) schools are established. They are
written variously, sometimes in Tibetan but mostly in ideographs. The sacerdotal
language (Senzar), besides an alphabet of its own, may be rendered in several
modes of writing in cypher characters, which partake more of the nature of
ideographs than of syllables. Another method (lug, in Tibetan) is to
use the numerals and colours, each of which corresponds to a letter of the
Tibetan alphabet (thirty simple and seventy-four compound letters) thus forming
a complete cryptographic alphabet. When the ideographs are used there is a
definite mode of reading the text; as in this case the symbols and signs used in
astrology, namely the twelve zodiacal animals and the seven primary colours,
each a triplet in shade, i.e. the light, the primary, and the dark --
stand for the thirty-three letters of the simple alphabet, for words and
sentences. For in this method, the twelve "animals" five times repeated and
coupled with the five elements and the seven colours, furnish a whole alphabet
composed of sixty sacred letters and twelve signs. A sign placed at the
beginning of the text determines whether the reader has to spell it according to
the Indian mode, when every word is simply a Sanskrit adaptation, or according
to the Chinese principle of reading the ideographs. The easiest way however, is
that which allows the reader to use no special, or any language he
likes, as the signs and symbols were, like the Arabian numerals or figures,
common and international property among initiated mystics and their followers.
The same peculiarity is characteristic of one of the Chinese modes of writing,
which can be read with equal facility by any one acquainted with the character:
for instance, a Japanese can read it in his own language as readily as a
Chinaman in his.
The Book of the Golden Precepts -- some of which are pre-Buddhistic while
others belong to a later date -- contains about ninety distinct little
treatises. Of these I learnt thirty-nine by heart, years ago. To translate the
rest, I should have to resort to notes scattered among a too large number of
papers and memoranda collected for the last twenty years and never put in order,
to make of it by any means an easy task. Nor could they be all translated and
given to a world too selfish and too much attached to objects of sense to be in
any way prepared to receive such exalted ethics in the right spirit. For, unless
a man perseveres seriously in the pursuit of self-knowledge, he will never lend
a willing ear to advice of this nature.
And yet such ethics fill volumes upon volumes in Eastern literature,
especially in the Upanishads. "Kill out all desire of life," says Krishna to
Arjuna. That desire lingers only in the body, the vehicle of the embodied Self,
not in the SELF which is "eternal, indestructible, which kills not nor is it
killed" (Katha Upanishad). "Kill out sensation,"
teaches Sutta Nipata; "look alike on pleasure and pain, gain and
loss, victory and defeat." Again, "Seek shelter in the eternal alone" (ibid).
"Destroy the sense of separateness," repeats Krishna under every form. "The
Mind (Manas) which follows the rambling senses, makes the Soul
(Buddhi) as helpless as the boat which the wind leads astray
upon the waters" (Bhagavatgita II. 70).
Therefore it has been thought better to make a judicious selection only from
those treatises which will best suit the few real mystics in the Theosophical
Society, and which are sure to answer their needs. It is only these who will
appreciate these words of Krishna-Christos, the "Higher Self": --
"Sages do not grieve for the living nor the dead. Never did I not exist, nor
you, nor these rulers of men; nor will any one of us ever hereafter cease to
be." (Bhagavatgita II. 27).
In this translation, I have done my best to preserve the poetical beauty of
language and imagery which characterise the original. How far this effort has
been successful, is for the reader to judge. -- "H.P.B."
Table of Contents
|