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  THEOSOPHY AND LIFE'S
  DEEPER PROBLEMS




  _Copyright Registered_
  All Rights Reserved

  _Permission for translations will be given_
  BY
  THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING HOUSE
  Adyar, Madras, India




                         THEOSOPHY AND LIFE'S
                            DEEPER PROBLEMS

        _Being the four Convention Lectures delivered in Bombay
            at the Fortieth Anniversary of the Theosophical
                       Society, December, 1915._

                                  BY
                             ANNIE BESANT
                _President of the Theosophical Society_

                     THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING HOUSE
                         ADYAR, MADRAS, INDIA

                   T.P.S., LONDON; T.P.H., BENARES;
                       INDIAN BOOK DEPOT, BOMBAY
                                 1916




FOREWORD


    The lectures really need no Foreword. They are frankly propagandist,
    being delivered in the City of Bombay, on the occasion of the return
    to that city for the first time since the Anniversary held in Framji
    Cowasji Hall, on December 7th, 1882, with 15 delegates present. The
    little seed there planted in India by our Founders has grown into a
    mighty tree. May it continue to spread ever more widely its branches,
    and may its leaves be for the healing of the Nations.

  ANNIE BESANT




CONTENTS


                                   PAGE

  Lecture   I GOD                     1

  Lecture  II MAN                    25

  Lecture III RIGHT AND WRONG        47

  Lecture  IV BROTHERHOOD            73




THEOSOPHICAL CONVENTION

LECTURES




GOD


  FRIENDS:

Amid the excitements of the present National Week, amid all the
Conferences on matters of importance to the Nation, amid the
discussions--industrial, commercial, political--which are agitating
this great City, and will agitate it during the next week, we, of the
Theosophical Society, have ventured to invite you here to consider
not the passing concerns of the moment but the perpetual concerns of
the life dealing with the eternal interests, the life wherein alone
permanence can ever be found.

I have chosen for the subject of our Convention Lectures, those
great problems of thought which ever challenge the attention of the
highest mind of man. That question of questions of the nature, of our
conception, of God; the nature of man, his relation to the Universe
in which he finds himself--the evolution of an intelligent spiritual
Being amid the transitory phenomena of passing worlds; then that
profound question of conduct, what is Right and what is Wrong? is
it possible to find a standard of ethics? is it possible to find a
canon of conduct which will guide us in that tangled path of action
which is one of the hardest problems of human life? Then, lastly, the
meaning of Brotherhood, on what it is based, in what it consists, what
duties it imposes upon us, what is to be our attitude to our brethren
on every side. These questions, that on these four mornings we are to
consider, are not questions of the passing time, but are the problems
that confront humanity at all the stages of its evolution. Not only
is that so, but in this alone can we find peace, amid the turmoil of
the world; not in the constant struggles of outer life may peace be
found, but in the heart of peace which abides in the ETERNAL, that can
remain peaceful in the midst of storms, amid friends, amid enemies,
amid neutrals; only in the Peace of the ETERNAL may the human Spirit
find abiding rest. When that centre is found, when that knowledge of
God which is eternal life has been realised by man, then, and then
alone, can action be wisely taken, not swayed by passion, not moved by
prejudices, having nothing to gain which the outer world can give and
nothing to lose which that world can take away; asking for nothing,
desiring nothing, save to be an instrument of the Will that works for
Righteousness, seeing in the world around us the field of action where
God is working, and where we can be co-workers with God. There, and
there alone, can you work above the guṇas, using them for the Divine
purposes, but not permitting yourself to fall under the glamour of
their phenomena; making use of all: of the passions of man, of the
aspirations of man, of the good and of the evil, turning them all
to send man forward on the path which God has marked out for human
progress. That is the high activity which finds its expression in
Service, and that can only be where God has