open your heart to every breath of truth; that it may be so, open
your eyes to every ray from the one eternal Sun. In the past the world
would have none of the Masters. They slew the Christ; they made the
prophets outcasts. And until in our heart the love of the Master
awakens, until with passionate longing, with continual insistence, we
call to the divine Men the welcome, without which They may not come,
They must remain hidden. Only when there comes up from heart after
heart one vast chant of devotion and appeal, only then will They come
to the many as They have already come to the few, and show out the
visible splendor of Their manhood, as the glory of Their divinity has
ever been upon the earth.

Theosophy and the Theosophical Society

I want to put before you clearly and plainly what Theosophy means, and
what is the function of the Theosophical Society. For we notice very
often, especially with regard to the Society, that there is a good
deal of misconception touching it, and that people do not realise the
object with which it exists, the work that it is intended to perform.
It is very often looked upon as the expression of some new religion,
as though people in becoming Theosophists must leave the religious
community to which he or she may happen to belong. And so a profound
misconception arises, and many people imagine that in some way or
other it is hostile to the religion which they profess. Now Theosophy,
looked at historically or practically, belongs to all the religions of
the world, and every religion has an equal claim to it, has an equal
right to say that Theosophy exists within it. For Theosophy, as the
name implies, the Divine WISDOM, the WISDOM of God, clearly cannot be
appropriated by any body of people, by any Society, not even by the
greatest of the religions of the world. It is a common property, as
free to everyone as the sunlight and the air. No one can claim it as
his, save by virtue of his common humanity; no one can deny it to his
brother, save at the peril of destroying his own claim thereto. Now
the meaning of this word, both historically and practically, the
WISDOM, the Divine WISDOM, is a very definite and clear meaning; it
asserts the possibility of the knowledge of God. That is the point
that the student ought to grasp; this knowledge of God, not the belief
in Him, not the faith in Him, not only vague idea concerning Him, but
the _knowledge_ of Him, is possible to man. That is t