Frank McManus

A Personal View by Frank

I am a 73 year old retired Consultant Psychiatrist and am fairly new to Theosophy, having discovered it only 4 years ago. I was brought up and educated as a Roman Catholic. I was initially concerned that Catholicism and Theosophy might not sit well together but I have found the reverse to be true. Theosophical teaching encapsulates the Ageless Wisdom, which itself underpins the doctrines of all the world’s major religions. However, this is only true at an esoteric or inner level but not in their exoteric or outer forms.

The biggest question of all is surely “ What is Mankind’s destiny ?” I have never accepted that we undergo total annihilation at death. Equally unacceptable to me is the exoteric Christian teaching that we have only one life, after which we face a “final judgement” on how we lived this one life, before being rewarded with eternal bliss or sentenced to eternal suffering. The only credible and just answer to the question of what happens to us at death is that contained in the twin theosophical pillars of Karma and Re-Incarnation, the bedrock of theosophical teaching.

We are given limitless opportunities to grow spiritually through repeated re-birth, but at the same time, paying all due moral debts that we incur in our lives by selfish thoughts, words and deeds via the great Law of Karma, that of Universal Justice. We reap what we sow. We, and we alone, are responsible for our actions and that is as it should be.