Montreal Theosophy Project: Introduction to the Voice of the Silence H. P. Blavatsky 1/4

Blavatsky's The Voice of the Silence has established itself a classic of spiritual guidance, providing inspiration to many since it's publication in 1889. It contains many Hinduistic and Buddhistic elements, see Bhagavad Gita - Theosophical Bibliography, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, Buddhism of H. P. Blavatsky, Henk J. Spierenbur. For a full commentary, see https://universaltheosophy.com/mca/exploring-the-voice-of-the-silence/

In 1927 the staff of the 9th Panchen Lama Tub-ten Cho-gyi Nyima helped Theosophists put out the "Peking Edition" of The Voice of the Silence and he wrote a short dedication. (Blavatsky H.P. The Voice of the Silence, ed. Alice Cleather and Basil Crump. Peking: Chinese Buddhist Research Society, 1927. – P. 113). Zen Buddhism scholar D. T. Suzuki wrote: “The Voice of the Silence is true Mahayanistic doctrine. Undoubtedly, Madame Blavatsky had in some way been initiated into the deeper side of Mahayana teachings and then gave out what she deemed wise to the Western world as theosophy." (“The Eastern Buddhist” vol. V no.4 July 1931). The 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso wrote:"I believe that this book has strongly influenced many sincere seekers and aspirants to the wisdom and compassion of the Bodhisattva Path." (Blavatsky Helena The Voice of the Silence. Centenary edition. Santa Barbara: Concord Grove Press, 1989. // Foreword by the 14th Dalai Lama).

Preface

1- 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.

When she later left the Theosophical Society, Mabel Collins began to maintain that she had written the book entirely of her own inspiration and volition, to which HPB replied in a circulated letter of 1889:

“If she is the sole author of Light on the Path, how comes it that she, ignorant of Sanskrit and having never seen the Golden Precepts, could use so many sentences bodily enshrined in that purely Occult work? . . . “Before the voice can speak in the presence of the Masters it must have lost its power to wound.” . . . “Seek in the heart the source of evil and expunge it.” These are aphorisms as old as the Book of the Golden Precepts, from which they radiated – “on the walls” – and thence into Light on the Path.” (Blavatsky, CollectedWritings (Extracts from “Lucifer,”“Light,”and Elsewhere) vol. XI, pp. 313-30.)

2- 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.

In the former countries these three Universes were allegorized, in exoteric teachings, by the three trinities emanating from the Central eternal germ and forming with it a Supreme Unity: the initial, the manifested, and the Creative Triad, or the three in One. The last is but the symbol, in its concrete expression, of the first ideal two. Hence Esoteric philosophy passes over the necessarianism of this purely metaphysical conception, and calls the first one, only, the Ever Existing. This is the view of every one of the six great schools of Indian philosophy — the six principles of that unit body of Wisdom of which the “gnosis,” the hidden knowledge, is the seventh. (Blavatsky, Helena, The Secret Doctrine, Vol. I, p. 278)

3- 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 Paramârtha, which, the legend of Nâgârjuna tells us, was delivered to the great Arhat by the Nâgas or “Serpents” (in truth a name given to the ancient Initiates), the “Book of the Golden Precepts” claims the same origin.

“The allegory that regarded Nâgârjuna’s “Paramârtha” as a gift from the Nâgas (Serpents) shows that he received his teachings from the secret school of adepts, and that the real tenets are therefore kept secret.” — (Blavatsy, Helena. Theosophical Glossary, Mâdhyamikas)

Blavatsky, Collected Writings, 14, 285:

Nāgārjuna [a “mythological” personage “without any real existence,” the learned German scholar thinks] received the book Paramārtha, or according to others, the book Avatamsaka, from the Nāgas, fabulous creatures of the nature of serpents, who occupy a place among the beings superior to man, and are regarded as protectors of the law of the Buddha. To these spiritual beings Śākyamumi is said to have taught a more philosophical religious system than to men, who were not sufficiently advanced to understand it at the time of his appearance.*

* Buddhism in Tibet, p. 31. [London, Trübner, 1863; also London, Susil Gupta,

1968. Paramārtha means the Prajnā-Pāramitā Sūtras.]

4- Yet its maxims and ideas, however noble and original, are often found under different forms in Sanskrit works, such as the Jñâneśvari, 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 Âryans, not Mongolians, especially those who emigrated into Tibet. The works left by Âryâsanga alone are very numerous.

The Dnyaneshwari, also referred to as Jnaneshwari or Bhavartha Deepika is a commentary on the Bhagavad Gita written by the Marathi saint and poet Dnyaneshwar in 1290 CE. Dnyaneshwar (born 1275) lived a short life of 21 years, and this commentary is notable to have been composed in his teens. The text is the oldest surviving literary work in the Marathi language, one that inspired major Bhakti movement saint-poets such as Eknath and Tukaram of the Varkari (Vithoba) tradition.The Dnyaneshwari interprets the Bhagavad Gita in the Advaita Vedanta tradition of Hinduism.The philosophical depth of the text has been praised for its aesthetic as well as scholarly value. (Dnyandev; Pradhan, Vitthal Ganesh (1987), Lambert, Hester Marjorie (ed.), Dnyaneshwari : Bhāvārthadipikā, State University of New York Press, p. x-xi)

Asaṅga (fl. 4th century C.E.) was “one of the most important spiritual figures” of Mahayana Buddhism and the “founder of the Yogachara school”. Traditionally, he and his half-brother Vasubandhu are regarded as the major classical Indian Sanskrit exponents of Mahayana Abhidharma, Vijñanavada (awareness only) thought and Mahayana teachings on the bodhisattva path. (Asanga, The Bodhisattva Path to Unsurpassed Enlightenment: A Complete Translation of the Bodhisattvabhumi, Shambhala Publications, 2016, Translator’s introduction.)

5- 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 Mahâyâna (Yogâchâra) 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.

6- 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.

Memorization is a significant part of a monk’s daily schedule, and mainly serves three purposes: memorizing philosophical texts for debate, memorizing prayers and rituals, and memorizing practical, advice-oriented texts. Each monk is free to choose how much he emphasizes any of these three. (Ven. Tenzin Gache (Brian Roiter) Memorization: Beneficial Exercise for the Mind)

7- 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 Nipâta; “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” (Bhagavadgîtâ II. 70).

Below are some passages that are similar to the passages Blavatsky quotes :

So knowing the supreme,
And sustaining the self with Self,
Slay the foe whose form is desire,
So hard to conquer, Arjuna. (B.G., 3.43)

The seer (Atman, Self) is not born, nor does he die,
He does not originate from anybody, nor does he become anybody,
Eternal, ancient one, he remains eternal,
he is not killed, even though the body is killed.

If the killer thinks that he kills,
if the killed thinks that he is killed,
they do not understand;
for this one does not kill, nor is that one killed.

The Self (Atman), smaller than small, greater than great,
is hidden in the heart of each creature,
Free from avarice, free from grief, peaceful and content,
he sees the supreme glory of Atman.

(Katha Upanishad, 1.2.18-1.2.20)

Detached from thoughts of sense-desire, all fetters overpassed, delight-in-being quite destroyed—who in the deep sinks not. (SN 1.9 177)

Though one is touched by Worldly Dharmas (honour and dishonour, blame and praise, happiness, dissatisfaction) yet one’s mind does never waver, griefless, spotless and secure: this is a supreme good omen. (SN 2.4, 271)

Victory brings hate, because the defeated man is unhappy. He who surrenders victory and defeat, this man finds joy. (Dhammapada 15, 201)

8- 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.” (Bhagavadgîtâ II. 27).

9-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.”

The language does make liberal use of traditional metaphors from eastern poetics, and has many similarities in style to the Stanzas of Dzyan from the Secret Doctrine (see for example, Stanza 7 in book I). It’s safe to say that some of the classic Theosophical suggested texts have similar ideas to the Voice of the Silence: Baghavad Gita, Yoga Sutras, Light on the Path, Dhammapada, and I think that they can be considered complementary for the study of this text. For a Mahayana text close in spirit, Santideva’s Bodhisattvacharyavarta can be mentioned. Of course Blavatsky contributed to an extensive study of eastern spiritual texts through The Theosophist and elsewhere, in parallel with Max Muller and others. For example, in her Gems from the East, she cites the following :

Cūla Kamma Vibhaṅga Sutta (The Discourse on the Lesser Analysis of Karma) (MN 135)

Dhammapada (KN 2)

Mahāmangala Sutta (KN 1,5)

Sutta Nipata (KN 5)

Vasala Sutta (The Discourse on Outcastes) (Sn 1.7)

Vāsettha Sutta (MN 98)

Udānavarga: A Collection of Verses from the Buddhist Canon

Sutra Of The 42 Chapters (or Sutra Of The 42 Sections)

Saddharma-Pundarîka (The Lotus of the True Law)

Rigveda

Upanishads: Kaṭha (marked by index K), Maitrâyana Brâhmana (MB), Brihadâranyaka (B), Mundaka (M), Svetâsvatara (S), Khândogya (Kh).

The Vishnu Purana