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Trog, "I am always looking for the Truth..."
Good, the motto that Blavatsky borrowed from one of the Indian Rajas is "There is no religion higher than Truth."
I would suggest to anyone, not just you, a more direct approach than studying the personalities & history of any movement. The writings of the principal founders are still in print - Blavatsky, WQ Judge & Purucker are among my favorites. Pick smaller works than Isis U; - like Key to Theosophy or Ocean of Theosophy or Wind of the Spirit.
In addition to many books on Theosophy, the varied groups also put out some magazines. Here is one that started in 2013. It is published online from the Netherlands, in English:
Helena Blavatsky established the Theosophical Society on entirely unsectarian and non-political lines. She accentuated tirelessly the truths of Theosophy; she declared that man's essential divine nature was a potent quality which should be aroused continuously: i.e., that man was dual in his nature - that the higher, the nobler, the divine part, was the corrective and inspiring part, and that the human mind, no matter how splendidly trained, must be controlled by this higher self: before this, man could not find his true place or realize his latent possibilities.
She declared in her teachings that one who would know his strength, must find his divinity, not outside himself, but within; that he must understand the laws of evolution and involution; that spiritually he must realize that he is a part inseparable of the great human family; and that if he carried the investigation of Theosophy far enough, he would readily conceive of Deity as an all-powerful, omnipresent principle, rather than as a personal God existing at some point in space.
We have opportunities continuously of
making every day an Easter-festival, a day
of the resurrection or the evoking of the spiritual
side of our natures; for every man is a
Christ in degree. But we and our ancestors
before us have been moving along under the
psychology of the ages, half-blinded with the
teaching that Jesus alone was the special son
of God, and that the rest of humanity were
miserable sinners whose only salvation lay
in something outside themselves. Such a
conception deprives humanity of its rightful
spiritual heritage.
Individuals in every age have more or less clearly apprehended the Theosophical doctrines and wrought them into the fabric of their lives. These doctrines belong exclusively to no religion, and are confined to no society or time. They are the birthright of every human soul. Such a thing as orthodoxy must be wrought out by each individual according to his nature and his needs, and according to his varying experience. This may explain why those who have imagined Theosophy to be a new religion have hunted in vain for its creed and its ritual. Its creed is Loyalty to Truth, and its ritual 'To honour every truth by use.'
Occult philosophy reconciles the absurdity of postulating in the
manifested Universe an active Mind without an organ, (with that worse
absurdity, an objective Universe evolved as everything else in it, by blind
chance,) by giving to this Universe an organ of thought, a "brain." The
latter, although not objective to our senses, is none the less existing; it is
to be found in the Entity called KOSMOS (Adam Kadmon, in the
Kabbalah). As in the Microcosm, MAN, so in the Macrocosm, or the
Universe. Every "organ" in it is a sentient entity, and every particle of
matter of substance, from the physical molecule up to the spiritual atom,
is a cell, a nerve centre, which communicates with the brain-stuff or that
substance on the plane of divine Thought in which the prime ideation is
produced. Therefore, was man produced in the image of God—or Divine
Nature. Every cell in the human organism mysteriously corresponds
with a like "cell" in the divine organism or the manifested universe; only
the latter "cell" assumes in the macrocosm the gigantic proportions of
an intelligent unit in this or that "Hierarchy" of Beings. This, so far as the differentiated, divine Mind is concerned, on its plane of ideation. This
eternal or ABSOLUTE THOUGHT—lies beyond and is, to us, inscrutable.
Long before Blavatsky outlined her modern presentation of Theosophy, the ancient theosophical movement existed.
Here is a theosophist in fact, if not in name, who was never a member of any group inspired by Blavatsky:
Quote:
The central aim of Vedanta is to bring all to one unifying understanding, yet to let each one follow his own particular form of faith. When we try to force sameness of thought, it bars spiritual progress; but when we admit the possibility of perfect unity in variety, then each one is able to advance in his own way.
Vedanta realizes that as long as there are such differences in human temperament and mind, we cannot expect all to worship in the same manner. To destroy diversity in life would be to destroy much of its beauty and sublimity. Therefore Vedanta includes in its scope all forms of thought.
As the post above mentions, the theosophical movement, is much older than the Theosophical Society that Blavatsky founded. Here is short survey of the founding of the TS:
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