Ethics

It is impossible to understand the sublime wisdom of the gods

The archaic wisdom-religion of the ancients

Without the keenest realisation of the fact that ethics run like golden threads throughout the entire system or fabric of doctrine and thought of the esoteric philosophy

Genuine occultism, divorced from ethics is simply unthinkable because impossible

Ethics are not merely the products of human thought existing as a formulation of conventional rules proper for human conduct

They are founded on the very structure and character of the universe itself

The heart of the universe is wisdom-love

And these are intrinsically ethical

For there can be no wisdom without ethics

Nor can love be without ethics

Nor can there be ethics deprived of either love or wisdom

Ethics are the offspring of the moral instinct in human beings

Who derived them in their turn from the heart of the universe

From the cosmic harmony

It is high time that the occidental world should cast forever into the limbo of exploded superstitions the idea that ethics is merely conventional morality

A convenience invented by man to smooth the asperities and dangers of human intercourse

Of course every scholar knows that the words morals and ethics come from the Latin and Greek respectively

As signifying the customs or habits which it is proper to follow in civilised communities

But this fact in itself, which is unquestionable, is in a sense disgraceful

For it would almost seem that we had not brought forth a word adequately describing the instinct for right and truth and troth and justice and honour and wisdom and love which we today so feebly express by the words ethics and morals

No one can be a truly conscious human who does not feel ethically and think ethically and live ethically

G de Purucker