The memory of one’s father inspires the pursuit of virtue. Father “has sown the fire-laden bond of love” so that the divine lovers turn, recall, and rally around him. Perfection comes for those who love contemplating Truth. Love is the cause of dis-integration of the One, the medium between spirit and matter (i.e., upper triad and lower quaternary), and the cause of re-integration. When love meets with a bad receptacle it brings about a life that is tyrannical and intemperate in five different ways. 1. The coarse lover hangs on his darling; the true lover is self-reliant and poised. 2. The one loves the body and discards the person when the bloom of youth has withered; the other loves the soul. 3. The one is fickle and readily forsakes his darling; the other is truehearted and loyal. 4. The vulgar lover contrives all sorts of pretexts for conversation with his darling; the true lover avoids talking to his beloved, unless there is some spiritual benefit to him. 5. The one lives apart from the One; the other, is akin the One and an exemplar of divine virtue and beauty. The eyes of the common man cannot contemplate the splendour of Truth. In the ascent to the summit of divine love, the multitude of common lovers becomes an obstacle by assuming the character of the true lover and dragging down the soul of the youth from vistas on high to the dark side of this illusive plane; by charming souls they lead them away from the mysteries, say the oracles. As the good spirit attends us for the most part invisibly, bestowing unawares his forethought upon us and silently correcting our lives, so also Socrates attends the spiritual needs of his beloved Alcibiades in silence and in secret. Socrates is about to begin delivering Alcibiades, purified from vulgar lovers, by the philosophy of love. Alcibiades shall be saved by Pallas Athene, whose function is uphold the unity of life and preserve the heart intact. His soul is dual, animal and divine. Forgetfulness and ignorance of what is primarily beautiful make inferior lovers concern themselves with the kind of beauty that is implicated in matter. There are two kinds of enthusiasm, one superior to moderation, and another short of it. The former is an insufflation from without; the latter, a pernicious inflammation of the heart. The intelligibles, on account of their unutterable, undifferentiated oneness, have no need of the mediation of love; but in the separation and the reunification of beings, love is the agent and medium. As the centre of the circle is everywhere, and its circumference (that represents the hidden deity) is nowhere, so the divine heart throbs everywhere but is nowhere to be seen. People is a multitude united to itself, mob is an incoherent multitude: their relation is that of democracy versus ochlocracy. Only love can melt away alienation and warm the heart of all those who are born under the same law. We train ourselves in regard to pleasure and pain, neither fleeing from our emotions, nor remaining completely without experience of them, but assuming a middle position in their regard and overcoming our tendency to excess and disorderliness. Better help than the love of philosophy it is not easy to find, says Diotima. For chaste love is the binder of all things and their sublime guide. The living creature is the fairest of the objects of intellect. As spirit hides between god and man, so love binds the lover to the beloved. The inspired lover differs from the vulgar lover: being aligned with intellect and divine beauty, the inspired lover is stable, active, immaterial; the wanton lover, fickle, passive, material — since the object of his love is ephemeral, sensual beauty. Love is threefold: One absolute and primary, One perpetually participated, One intermittently participated.

1. O Lanoo, listen to the Voice of the Heart Doctrine. 2. Give it all away or you will lose it. 3. Let your life become an example to unbelievers. 4. True life can only be found through Devotion to All. 5. With subdued heart place all thy works on Me. 6. Rise above the trappings of personal life. 7. Feel the Great Heart within. 8. With unfettered mind throw every deed on Me. 9. Intoxicate yourself with the right attitude and ethic.

Neither the physical nor the metaphysical Science are of interest to the true philanthropist, except in the degree of their potentiality of moral results, and in proportion of their usefulness to mankind. Nature works slowly but incessantly towards the evolution of conscious life out of inert material. Every thought passes into the inner world and, by coalescing with an elemental, it becomes an active intelligence. Thus a good thought is perpetuated as an active beneficent power; an evil one, as a maleficent demon. The Buddhist calls this impulse-seed his Skandha; the Hindu, his Karma; the Adept evolves these shapes consciously; other men throw them off unconsciously. Every form of life is sustained by countless other lives. If you offer nothing in return, you are like a thief. The building ant, the busy bee, the nest-building bird accumulate, each in their own humble way, as much cosmic energy in its potential form as a Haydn, a Plato, or a ploughman turning his furrow. They thus rob nature instead of enriching her, and will all in the degree of their intelligence find themselves accountable. Exact experimental Science has nothing to do with morality, virtue, or philanthropy. Her cold classification of facts outside man can only benefit the career of her professors. The Initiated Adept is the efflorescence of his age. Few ever appear in a single century. The cycles must run their rounds. Periods of mental and moral light and darkness succeed each other, as day does night. The major and minor yugas must be accomplished according to the established order of things. And we, borne along on the mighty tide, can only modify and direct some of its minor currents. If we had the powers of the imaginary Personal God, and the universal and immutable laws were but toys to play with, then indeed might we have created conditions that would have turned this earth into an Arcadia for lofty souls. But having to deal with an immutable Law, being ourselves its creatures, we have had to do what we could and rest thankful. Modern education enthrones scepticism and imprisons spiritualism. The boisterousness of animal passions stifles spirituality. What else could one expect of men so nearly related to the lower kingdom, from which they evolved? The era of blind faith is gone; that of enquiry is here. Enquiry that only unmasks error, without discovering anything upon which the soul can build, will but make iconoclasts. The noble aim of the progressive mind is to furnish the building blocks for a universal religious philosophy. A philosophy impregnable to scientific assault, because itself the finality of absolute science; and, a religion worthy of the name. The main aim of the Theosophical Society is to root out superstition and scepticism, and to help man shape his future. The cis-Himalayan Mahatmas will not be thwarted in their philanthropic attempts to save humanity from itself until that day when the new continent of thought is firmly established.

Kama-Deva is the first conscious all-embracing desire for universal good, love, and for all that lives and feels, needs help and kindness, the first feeling of infinite tender compassion and mercy that arose in the consciousness of the Creative Force, that came into life and being by a single ray of Light and Truth. That pure desire, of whom Love is born, is the progenitor of affection. Pythagoras’ Primeval Monad which, having flashed out like lightning from the Central Point and thrilled through the Germ retires into Darkness is the Rootless Root of all things. The Pythagorean system is based entirely upon sacred numbers, harmony, and correspondences or affinities. Space is filled with atoms actuated by ceaseless rotationary motion. Aggregated atoms, through mutual collisions, produce lateral movements of affinity. Sounds and colours are spiritual numerals. The cause of the splendour and variety of colours lies deep in the affinities of nature, for there is a singular and mysterious alliance between colour and sound. The Creative Force produces colours, sounds, and numbers, in the shape of rates of vibration, which compound and dissociate atoms and molecules. There is mutual sympathy between terrestrial and celestial things. Terrestrial natures receive the plenitude of the celestial; and celestial, of supercelestial essences, while every order of things proceeds gradually in a majestic descent from the highest to the lowest. True magic is firmly based on the mysterious affinities between organic and inorganic bodies, the visible productions of the four kingdoms, and the invisible powers of the universe. That which science calls gravitation, the ancients and the mediæval Hermetists called magnetism, attraction, affinity. Magnetism is attraction to the virtue of the substance, rather than blind attraction between two masses. Eastern Occultists bring down the properties of matter to attraction and repulsion; modern Scientists, to gravitation and phylogenetic relations. Affection is one of the most powerful attractions between two loving spirits — the embodied and the disembodied one — further enhanced by the harmony between the two and the magnetic purity of those left on earth. The attraction of the “shells” of the departed to places and persons is brought forth by the law of magneto-vital affinities. But the ascent of the higher Ego to the bliss of pure subjectivity will be impeded if its alter ego is weighted down with base feelings. The reincarnating Ego is drawn by magnetic attraction to the atmosphere of the parent or parents, whose vibrational frequency is most sympathetic to its own, and with whom its karmic affinities are strongest. The virtues of the Macrocosm are represented in the Microcosm or Man. The magnetic power of Man can thus draw those celestial virtues which correspond to his own. It is the science of Astrology that determines the nature of effects, by a knowledge of the law of magnetic affinities and attractions of the planetary bodies. But it is the Karma of the individual himself, which places him in that particular magnetic relation. The Occultist follows the ethnological affinities and their divergences in various nationalities, races, and sub-races, by observing the auric shades and gradations of colour of the inner man. He can thus unerringly pronounce to which of several distinct human families, and to what particular group or sub-group that man belongs. The secret of healing lies in the knowledge of the affinities between kindred atoms. Find that metal, wood, stone, or plant that has the most correspondential affinity with the body of the sufferer, and that particular agent will lead invariably to his cure. Strong will creates and sympathy attracts even adepts. In Europe, more than anywhere else, there is a Universal Brotherhood, an alliance of affinities, of strong magnetic yet dissimilar forces and polarities, centred around one dominant idea. The cause of spiritual failure lies in the egotism of the age, whether conscious or unconscious. And even western philanthropy, so often pervaded by selfish motives and worldly affinities, is unable to warm humanity with its beneficent rays. Blessed are the pure-hearted who have only intuition, for intuition is better than intellect.

Tributes by Eminent Theosophists on the Paradigm of Mahayana Buddhism. The Voice of The Silence, though it does not claim to be the utterance of a Buddha, is nevertheless akin to the sutra rather to the śāstra group of texts. . . . It seeks more to inspire than to instruct, appeals to the heart rather than to the head. To make use of De Quincey’s classification, it belongs not to the literature of information, the purpose of which is to augment knowledge, but to the literature of power, the aim of which is to move. So important is a clear understanding of the difference not merely between the kinds of effect they are calculated to produce and the organs upon which they are intended to act, that, according to The Voice of The Silence itself, the disciple at the very outset of his quest is admonished, “Learn above all to separate Head-learning from Soul-wisdom, the ‘Eye’ from the ‘Heart doctrine.’” — Bhikshu Sangarakshita All being desire liberation from misery. Seek, therefore, for the causes of misery and expunge them. By entering on the path, liberation from misery is attained. Exhort, then, all beings to enter the path. — IXth Panchen Lama Madame Blavatsky had a profound knowledge of Buddhist philosophy, and the doctrines she promulgated were those of many great teachers. This book is like a call to men to forsake desire, dispel every evil thought, and enter the true Path. — B.T .Chang The only true exposition in English of the Heart Doctrine of the Mahāyāna and its noble ideal of self-sacrifice for humanity. — Alice Leighton Cleather & Basil Crump Here is the real Mahāyāna Buddhism. — D.T. Suzuki It gave us a blazing vision of the immensity of Mahāyāna Buddhism when our knowledge so far was exclusively of the Theravada, excepting HPB’s Voice of The Silence. — Christmas Humphreys There is a verge of the mind which these things haunt; and whispers therefrom mingle with the operations of our understanding, even as the waters of the infinite ocean send their waves to break among the pebbles that lie upon our shores. . . . We recognize the passwords to the mystical region as we hear them, but we cannot use them ourselves; it alone has the keeping of “the password primeval.” — William James [Having] bathed in these I marvelled what I could have done to merit birth in an age wherein such wisdom was on offer to all who could beg, borrow or steal a copy of those works. — George W. Russell I believe that this book has strongly influenced many sincere seekers and aspirants to the wisdom and compassion of the Bodhisattva Path. — XIVth Dalai Lama. It is also one of her (H.P. Blavatsky’s) most important writings, being a guidebook for those dedicated to achieving enlightenment through altruistic service to humanity. — Boris de Zirkoff This is a work intended for the aspirant after true, or self, knowledge, aiming to play a significant part in helping mankind along its arduous evolutionary path to ultimate self-redemption and liberation. — Geoffrey A. Farthing Pledge of Kwan Yin,” the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy. Never will I seek nor perceive private individual salvation; Never will I enter into final peace alone; But forever and everywhere will I live and strive For the redemption of every creature throughout the world. — Sylvia Cranston