Category: The Key To Theosophy (1889): H. P. Blavatsky

"Enq:  But surely Buddha must have repudiated the soul's immortality, if all the Orientalists and his own Priests say so!   Theo:  The Arhats began by following the policy of their Master and the majority of the subsequent priests were not initiated, just as in Christianity; and so, little by little, the great esoteric truths [...]

"Enq:  But we are distinctly told that most of the Buddhists do not believe in the Soul's immortality?   Theo:  No more do we, if you mean by Soul the personal Ego, or life-Soul - Nephesh. But every learned Buddhist believes in the individual or divine Ego. Those who do not, err in their judgement. [...]

"Enq:  What does Buddhism teach with regard to the Soul?   Theo:  It depends whether you mean exoteric, popular Buddhism, or its esoteric teachings. The former explains itself in the Buddhism Catechism in this wise:  "Soul it considers a word used by the ignorant to express a false idea. If everything is subject to change, [...]

"Enq:  I should be glad to learn in what way.   Theo:  Simply this:  the Buddhist priest premised by asking the padri whether his God had given commandments to Moses only for men to keep, but to be broken by God himself. The missionary denied the supposition indignantly.   Well, said his opponent, "you tell [...]

"Enq:  How, then, do you account for man being endowed with a Spirit and Soul? Whence these?   Theo:  From the Universal Soul. Certainly not bestowed by a personal God. Whence the moist element in the jelly-fish? From the Ocean which surrounds it, in which it lives and breathes and has its being, and whither [...]

"Enq:  But how can you explain those cases which are followed by full success? Where does a Theosophist look to for power to subdue his passions and selfishness?   Theo:  To his Higher Self, the divine spirit, or the God in him, and to his Karma. How long shall we have to repeat over and [...]

"Enq:  But did not Christ himself pray and recommend prayer?   Theo:  It is so recorded, but those "prayers" are precisely of that kind of communion just mentioned with one's "Father in secret." Otherwise, and if we identify Jesus with the universal deity, there would be something too absurdly illogical in the inevitable conclusion that [...]

Enq:  Christians would call it pride and blasphemy. Are they wrong?   Theo:  Entirely so. It is they, on the contrary, who show Satanic pride in their belief that the Absolute or the Infinite, even if there was such a thing as the possibility of any relation between the unconditioned and the conditioned - will [...]

"Enq:  But how do you explain the universal fact that all nations and peoples have prayed to, and worshipped a God or Gods? Some have adored and propitiated devils and harmful spirits, but this only proves the universality of the belief in the efficacy of prayer.   Theo:  It is explained by that other fact [...]

"Enq:  Do you mean to say that prayer is an occult process bringing about physical results?   Theo:  I do. Will Power become a living power. But woe unto those Occultists and Theosophists, who, instead of crushing out the desires of the lower personal ego or physical man, and saying, addressing their Higher Spiritual EGO [...]