Annie Besant: Triumph of Spirit: Annie's Dream  

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Influenced by Madame Blavatsky, Annie Besant joined the Theosophical Society. Her aim was to found a universal brotherhood where race and creed don't matter, to encourage the study of literature and philosophy, and to investigate the unexplained laws of nature and the physical powers latent in man. She advocated a radical approach to religion, which emphasised that religion cannot be forced upon any one; that faith was a matter of personal belief.

Why did she choose to become a Theosophist? Annie Besant wrote: ''An imperious necessity forces me to speak the truth, as I see it... That one loyalty to truth I must keep stainless, whether friendships fail me or human ties be broken... I asked no other epitaph on my tomb but that 'she tried to follow truth'."

Concern for the great truths of life is, according to her, an important part of human conduct; the truer one's thought, the more candid and transparent would be one's actions. But it must be one's own thought, not a blind repetition of the thought of another. It is necessary to think and enquire fearlessly even in matters related to God and it is not blasphemous to doubt. Theosophy rested on truth.

Humanity's challenges, she felt, centre around our conception of God , the nature of man, his relation to the universe, the evolution of an intelligent spiritual being amid the transitory phenomena of passing worlds, the question of conduct, of right and wrong, finding a standard of ethics and ''a canon of conduct which will guide us in that tangled path of action''. Peace can be found not in the constant struggles of outer life. It is only in the peace of the eternal that the human spirit may find abiding rest.

Annie Besant outlined how to attain eternal peace. There are two paths to divine knowledge. The first is the way of the intellect, through metaphysics and philosophy, which gradually lifts a man above superstition and ignorance and takes him as far as human intellect can go. But the self cannot be found by the intellect alone. The path of realisation is not the path of the intellect. It is the path of the conquered senses, of the conquered mind, when in the ''quietude of the senses and the tranquillity of the mind, man beholds the glory of the self''. That is realisation.

An intellectual argument may be refuted by keener logic, by a better grasp of facts. But the man who has once seen the face of God can have no doubt about God. That is the self-realisation of the mystic and the triumph, not of the intellect but of the spirit.

The spirit which is divine recognises its kinship with the omnipresent spirit and when once ''you have found God within yourself, then, and only then, you will find Him in every one, in everything around you. That is the triumph of the spirit. That is the peace of the eternal'', she explained.

While speaking on the obsession with material possessions vis-a-vis the peace derived from spiritual enlightenment, she said how gold coins, when freely distributed, lead to a mad scramble for their possession - everyone wants to grab the maximum, even if it means others will be left with less. But the law of the spirit is strikingly different. It does not get reduced by use or sharing. On the contrary, it grows and widens its scope and benefits through divine blessings.

As the spirit has three great aspects of will, consciousness and intellect, these priceless possessions can be given away without fear of loss or decrease. We may light one candle from another but the flame never diminishes. So also with knowledge. Though theosophy was Annie Besant's religion, humanity was her passion. Art, religion, education, industry and even politics are all interrelated branches of the same truth, she said.

(Annie Besant was born on October 1, 1847.)

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See also: Annie Besant, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)