IN a recent address to the Theosophical Society's Annual Convention, the International President, Mrs Radha Burnier, observed how the spiritual Path is the 'undertone' of the Society's Three Objects. Truth-seeking is central to our human journey and to the Society's mission. She states:

She emphasizes that we must make Truth the supreme object of our lives. This is the meaning of entering the Path. The future of the TS may depend on how well it encourages truth-seeking and human transformation.

Our relationship with truth often begins tentatively. The theosophical classic At the Feet of the Master, shows how the friendship needs constant tending. Truth is easy to dismiss or deny when self-interests are high. But commitment leads in time to an enduring alliance. This union is somewhat of an arranged marriage, made in heaven and affirmed on earth. The divine Self is already wedded to Truth. As the partnership matures here, separation becomes unthinkable. One discovers that the beloved Truth is one's own substance. One becomes, in the Master's words, 'true all through'.

Truth is a shape-shifter that may not conform to expectations. Absolute truth is beyond facts, beliefs and imagining, though these may carry something of its essence. It is eternal, unchanging, everywhere, and apprehended only by those who surrender to it without fear. Absolute truth is a pure knowing, in which knower and known are one. Such truth is said to be the 'Voice' of the Silence, heard only when all separative sense is completely still.

The Seer may speak of Absolute truth or facilitate our knowing in other ways. But truth is realized in the silence of one'sown heart. One of three absolute truths given in the Idyll of the White Lotus is the following:

Consider how your life, all relationships and encounters, will change when you experience directly this truth. 'In my innermost Heart, I am immortal. My future is the future of one whose growth and splendour have no limit. The human soul is immortal. Our future is the future of one whose growth and splendour have no limit....' The statement itself opens a way inward.

As a living reality, eternal Truth inspires and heals all beings. We are truth-seekers by nature, needing truth for spiritual fulfilment as the body needs pure food and drink. Surrendering to truth, becoming true all through, we sense into the heart of things everywhere with a keen eye for connections. Every moment is new. Each being is a revelation of one, universal spirit in action. Sometimes we are speechless in wonder, praise and gratitude. Our remembering may be pale beside the bright, clear knowing; but this life, and indeed all lives, are blessed as Truth enraptures one more mind, heart and hand.

Relative truth is more accessible and a doorway to eternals yet unseen. We live it everyday, struggling to make sense of an ever-changing world with its hypocrisy, prejudice and unconscious self-deception. Relative truths are those insights we honour and live in our clearest moments. Such insights naturally ground themselves in action. Acts of creative imagination, transforming dreams, compassion, forgiveness, courage and altruism flow naturally from direct perception of truth. Great energy is generated and released in good works.

Truth is not separate from who we are today or who we will become. We embody what we know and live. As TS members and a collective body, we cannot resist its transforming power. Our momentary insights and deepest wisdom must re-shape who we are. Living truth fully, as best we can, centres the Society's life in both caring and a willingness to grow. Members renew the TS as they serve eternal values, every moment and everywhere.

The heart of anything represents its innermost truth. Realizing that nature, one knows its uniqueness and its movement in a wider life. As the heart signifies core values, growth potential and a readiness for change, entering its domain requires integrity. The truth at the heart of things is sensed in profound sympathy. Only one who is living in truth, a lover in the deepest sense, can know the heart of another.

All our relations, visible and invisible, human and non-human, are part of the seeking and finding. No relationship is trivial. Any encounter may awaken more fully our common spiritual nature. Truth-seeking follows the breathing of momentary, fleeting things. And it penetrates the great space-time cycles moving all beings forward together.

A dynamic, harmonious way of being informs the Theosophical Society. As we focus a particular work of the adept Hierarchy, a 'practical, regenerating brotherhood' is central to the Society's life and work. An elegant physical model is the human heart, which demonstrates a striking unity of intelligence, form and function. Scientists first identified heart muscle as an undifferentiated mass. But myocardium is, in fact, a community of cells working together in a unique way. Not only is the linkage among individual units unusually close, but a refined communication network furthers wholeness of perception and action among them.

Each tiny cell has a self-generated, inherent rhythm and can beat on its own. But they all follow specialized cells located high in the heart's right chamber. This entity is the pacemaker. Its rhythmic impulses spread through the heart, activating each portion in turn. The myocardial cells respond together, creating a forceful contraction and rest. Harmony is essential. Peripheral cells acting independently of the pacemaker may disrupt the heart's action, threatening survival.

The heart is the central organ in a vast circulatory system. It receives blood in need of cleansing and sends it to the lungs for renewing. Its action lends force to the refreshed bloodstream as it courses throughout the body. Aligned with regulatory centres in the brain and the endocrine system, the heart responds instantly to metabolic changes. It is thus involved directly in the body's nourishment, protection, purification, and regeneration.

The heart lives for the body, and its own health depends on the quality of its work. Though its intelligence is instinctual, and its activities mostly subconscious in relation to ourselves, we appreciate the power and beauty of its life. Nature speaks forcefully through the body, linking human consciousness with universal order. The tiny beings evolving together as heart are unified with millions of other lives comprising the body. Physically, heart wisdom is a natural integration of unity, hierarchy, cyclicity and self-actualization.

As consciousness and form are a unity, our beliefs and habitual emotional energies affect the heart's activity. Recent studies show a high incidence of poor circulation to the heart itself. Today in industrialized countries coronary artery disease leads all causes of death in people over age thirty-five. Among the factors underlying artery blockage are feelings of cynicism and isolation. Such emotion-thought patterns contribute to circulation blockage. Current therapies encourage honesty, open-heartedness, clear thinking and healthy communication. When the heart falters, being true in relationship is vital to healing. The heart itself shows the way.

Madame Blavatsky notes that the physical heart corresponds to Spiritual consciousness, a wholeness of knowing and action beyond 'head' learning. The Heart's memory spans lifetimes. Heart wisdom is rooted in the intelligence of universal Being, unconditioned by time or circumstance. N. Sri Ram states that the heart is open to intuition, and that the Divine Wisdom lived from the heart is very different from a collection of metaphysical concepts invented by the mind. We incarnate the truth of the Heart not for personal gain, but for the pure joy of honesty.

What does it mean to live Divine Wisdom, Theosophia, Truth from the heart? Here we connect with others and with our innermost truth, intending to affirm life. We embrace things as they are, attentive to how all beings seek happiness. One may ask, 'What does this heart love and seek above all? To what is my life consecrated? What is humanity's greatest need? What is the need before me, now? How can I help?' Thus, we forge a partnership with Nature, vowing to serve, willing to learn. We deepen our alliance with the Masters, meditating on their life and work, acting in their name. They are the pacemakers, and we are the heart's motive power, provided we work in the right spirit.

Madame Blavatsky's adept teacher gave several Golden Stairs to divine wisdom, among them 'a brotherliness for all'. Brothers and sisters are kin, children of the same parents. But our bonds are more enduring than physical ties. The wisdom teachings are clear about a spiritual ancestry and the communal nature of the human Soul. TS members are united further in the life and love of the Masters, whose influence has drawn us together for Truth-seeking in brotherhood. Each of us has answered an individual call but, remembering the wisdom of the Heart, we must act in harmony.

The human Heart embodies compassion, a presence and power of deep affinity. Sympathy may be clouded by self-will. The personal self cleverly imposes ideas and advice on others, using affinity to gain advantage. Even empathy, the ability to put oneself in another's place, may be used to manipulate and dominate others. Compassion is selfless. It is action among spiritual equals, a spontaneous response to suffering arising from unity. No feelings of superiority, weakness or indebtedness mar the underlying brotherhood. A mind free of self-concern opens naturally to the fact of shared suffering. Awakening to the truth of sorrow means experiencing loss, despair and loneliness together, sometimes just in silence. Compassion makes way for healing from within.

Compassion awakens us to the truth of sorrow as we know loss, despair and loneliness together. A mind free of self-concern opens to the fact of shared suffering and responds bravely. Compassion makes way for mutual healing, as we support each other through the inevitable dark times. Brotherliness is far more than toleration, getting along or conventional notions of teamwork. Our alliance must deepen whether outer circumstances appear bright or grim.

The Voice of the Silence notes that the Soul must 'lend its ear to every cry of pain, like as the lotus bears its heart to drink the morning sun'. The spiritual Self knows darkness and light from within. Its wisdom penetrates both realities, acting through them for healing and harmony. One symbol of Heart consciousness is the two interlaced triangles which are central in our theosophical Seal. The figure suggests a dynamic balance of heavenly and earthward-tending forces. The Soul generates life-affirming thoughts and feelings even in the midst of suffering, circulating refined energy for renewal. Compassion awakens an enormous capacity for listening, giving and growing.

In a letter to Annie Besant, the Master KH advised, 'At favourable times we let loose elevating influences which strike various persons in various ways. It is the collective aspect of many such thoughts that can give the correct note of action. We show no favours.' Our TS membership is diverse, creating a rich field for inquiry, circulation of ideas and sharing resources. Insight is not a personal possession, prize or reward, but surfaces in our collective awareness for the good of the whole. Mindful of trends in thought and feeling, without attachment or aversion to individuals or ideas, we maintain harmony as our organizations change.

The Master KH stated in the same letter, 'The essence of the higher thoughts of the members in their collectivity must guide all action....' According to HPB, the Mahatma's consciousness is centred in the spiritual Self. Intelligence is purified of personal desire. Imagine what this might mean: awareness is boundless as clear sky; things appear simply as they are; no personal desires arise - no restlessness, lethargy, grasping or aversion, no attachment to the past, no fears for today or tomorrow, no projection of personal prejudice or fantasies, no vague images. All is light-filled, the Truth of things shining from within. We know something of this awareness, simply in the conceiving. The challenge is in realizing essentials rather than resting in comfortable forms.

What is the essence of higher thought? Perhaps it is a spacious silence in which individuals are completely united. We gather and ideas arise. We listen, share, perhaps disagree, resolve differences, inquire into new possibilities. Through this lively exchange, a creative silence is unbroken. No separate selves craving attention and influence block the vital circulation of goodwill. Only a united field of perception and action, a nucleus of brotherhood, brings renewal.

Higher thoughts are unifying and visionary. They arise in a calm, dynamic consciousness centred in truthfulness. One is considerate of individuals without promoting self or others. All sense of status gives way to caring for the whole. We trust in each other, honouring the Masters' need for varied abilities and ways of working. Let us discover ways of being together, ways of inquiring into practical issues, ways of truth-seeking that honour the Master's directive. Then all action will have that truthful, peaceful quality our world so needs.

Annie Besant's beautiful vow of service and self-sacrifice is from one whose alliance to Truth and the Masters never wavered through great trials, whose joy in the work shone through all she did and all she was:

The Master KH advises, 'Let the devotion and service be to that Supreme Spirit alone of which one is a part.' He directs our gaze to that infinite Light which guides the steps of all world-servers. Realizing the brotherhood of the Holy Ones, affirming the unity they know, our lives no longer belong to us. Truth, love and self-surrender are inseparable. As one lives truthfully, loving deepens for all. One desires happiness for all.

The Theosophical Society's motto, 'There is no religion higher than Truth', is a mandate for each of us and the Society.
Much within ourselves and the universe is hidden. What we discover may change dramatically our notions of what is true and good. The Path does indeed lead into an unknown which appears dark and threatening. However, every brave step forward together lights the way for all. The light shines from one Heart en folding us in truthfulness. One can trust that Supreme Spirit always.

Mrs Maria Parisen is a National Lecturer for the Theosophical Society in America and Programme Director for the TS in Detroit, Michigan.