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The 19th-century Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky was born into a noble family in Ukraine. As a child, young Helena displayed a gift for clairvoyance as well as an interest in metaphysical phenomena. Years later, she traveled throughout Europe, the Middle East and India, studying with various teachers and Sufi saints. Following the guidance of an Indian yogi named Mahatma Morya, Madame Blavatsky co-founded the Theosophical Society. Madame Blavatsky wrote several important books on Theosophy, including “Isis Unveiled,” “The Secret Doctrine,” “The Key to Theosophy,” and “The Voice of the Silence.” “The Voice of the Silence” contains excerpts from a sacred Tibetan Buddhist text called “The Book of the Golden Precepts” that Madame Blavatsky discovered while in India and translated herself. Today on Words of Wisdom, we invite you to listen to excerpts of “The Seven Portals” from Madame Blavatsky’s “The Voice of the Silence.”
“The Pâramitâ heights are crossed by a still steeper path. Thou hast to fight thy way through portals seven, seven strongholds held by cruel crafty Powers — passions incarnate. Be of good cheer, Disciple; bear in mind the golden rule. Once thou hast passed the gate Srotâpatti, ‘he who the stream hath entered’; once thy foot hath pressed the bed of the Nirvânic stream in this or any future life, thou hast but seven other births before thee, O thou of adamantine Will. Look on. What sees thou before thine eye, O aspirant to god-like Wisdom?”
“Thou sees well, Lanoo. These Portals lead the aspirant across the waters on ‘to the other shore’. Each Portal hath a golden key that opens its gate; and these keys are: 1. Dâna, the key of charity and love immortal. 2. Shîla, the key of Harmony in word and act, the key that counterbalances the cause and the effect, and leaves no further room for Karmic action. 3. Kshânti, mercy sweet, that nothing can ruffle. 4. Virâg', indifference to pleasure and to pain, illusion conquered, truth alone perceived. 5. Vîrya, the dauntless energy that fights its way to the supernal Truth, out of the mire of lies terrestrial. 6. Dhyâna, whose golden gate once opened leads the Naljor (Saint) toward the realm of Sat (True Reality) eternal and its ceaseless contemplation. 7. Prajñâ, the key to which makes of a man a god, creating him a Bodhisattva, son of the Dhyânis. Such to the Portals are the golden keys. Before thou can approach the last, O weaver of thy freedom, thou hast to master these Pâramitâs of perfection — the virtues transcendental six and ten in number — along the weary Path.”
