It has been a matter of great prestige for India that Rabindranath Tagore was the first non-Westerner to be awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913. Hence, when the Nobel medal was stolen recently from the Viswabharati museum, the citizens of India experienced feelings of anger and shame. However, some feel that the whole thing needs to be viewed in the right perspective. "We need to look beyond it, and confront our real loss of Tagore—the silent, steady erosion of his thoughts, his ideas, his vision that once breathed new hope into our nation," writes Antara Dev Sen (The Indian Express, April 1). It is more important to keep Tagore's vision alive. She describes Tagore's philosophy thus:

Forever defying artificial boundaries between people and ideas, he stood for openness, for free thought, for a world based on the equality of human beings, refreshed by cultural exchange, alive with intellectual curiosity, a compassionate world that nurtures human development in every possible way. Through his poetry, songs, essays, fiction and plays, Tagore emphasized the importance of humanism over all other considerations, even patriotic nationalism. Fervently against slotting people by religion, race, caste, gender, language or nationality, the poet-philosopher who believed in the "Religion of Man" would have died a million deaths if he saw us perform today.

The theft of a medallion is a sign of moral degradation of the nation. More than a century ago, a Master of Wisdom observed: "India has been going down for thousands of years. She must take equally long for her regeneration." An article, "The Religion of Rabindranath Tagore"—paying homage to Tagore on the occasion of his birth centenary—appeared in The Theosophical Movement (Vol. 31, April 1961). It describes him, among other things, as a many-sided genius, a philosopher, a humanitarian and an educational reformer. He shunned narrow patriotism and was concerned about the affairs of the whole of humanity. His emphasis was always on unity, harmony, love and self-sacrifice. For him religion was synonymous with truth. We find in his ideas an echo of the philosophy of Theosophy. He said:

Mere information about facts, mere discovery of power, belongs to the outside and not to the inner soul of things. Gladness is the one criterion of truth, and we know when we have touched Truth by the music it gives, by the joy of greeting it sends forth to the truth in us. That is the true foundation of all religions. It is not as ether waves that we receive light; the morning does not wait for some scientist for its introduction to us. In the same way we touch the infinite reality immediately within us only when we perceive the pure truth of love or goodness, not through the explanations of theologians, not through the erudite discussion of ethical doctrines....

The divine principle of unity has ever been that of an inner interrelationship....But what is most important of all is the fact that man has also attained its realization in a more subtle body outside his physical system. He misses himself when isolated; he finds his own larger and truer self in his wide human relationship....Whatever name may be given to it, and whatever form it symbolizes, the consciousness of this unity is spiritual, and our effort to be true to it is our religion.

What is the origin of speech? What was the language of early humanity? In Science magazine (February 27), researchers explore the language evolution. Did human speech originate 2.4 million years ago, when man first made stone tools? Or, can it be linked with expansion in brain areas associated with producing or processing language? Researchers in genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, are of the view that the "speech gene" concerned with language and articulation may have undergone mutation between 100,000 to 200,000 years ago, gradually leading to well-developed linguistic ability. "Most researchers are inclined to the view that language gradually emerged over perhaps a couple of hundred thousand years," Science reported in 1998.

In recent years, however, many researchers have sought to connect language capability with changes in motor areas of the brain. While some believe that language evolved in our early ancestors as a manual system (sign language) and not as a vocal one, others look upon language as primarily oral behaviour. "Genetic and linguistic data indicate—but can't quite prove—that our ancient ancestors spoke with strange clicking noises." It is speculated that sounds of click languages may have been the original mother tongue, and the later involvement of larynx may have led to the development of phonology—sounds that could combine in endless ways to form a vocabulary, in turn paving the way for the emergence of syntax.

Speech may be defined as "the faculty of expressing thoughts and emotions in spoken words." Only human beings are endowed with articulate speech, and that did not originate from a few simple, crude animal sounds. Theosophy asserts that "a human brain is necessary for human speech." It has been observed that "the brain of the large ape, the gorilla, measures no more than 30.51 cubic inches; while the average brains of flat-headed Australian natives—the lowest now in the human races—amount to 99.35 cubic inches!" (S.D., II, 661)

Speech is connected with mind. The First Race was mindless and therefore also speechless. The Second Race had a "sound language," i.e., chant-like sounds consisting of vowels only. The language of the early Third Race was "only a slight improvement on the various sounds in Nature." In the middle of the Third Race, i.e., 18 million years ago, when man's mind was "lit up," speech developed gradually.

The Secret Doctrine (II, 198-200) tells us that speech developed in three stages:

• I. Monosyllabic: It developed at the close of the Third Root Race, after the lighting up of Manas. It was the vowel parent of the monosyllabic language mixed with hard consonants.


• II. Agglutinative: Monosyllabic speech slowly developed into the agglutinative languages consisting of loosely connected words. This primitive speech was spoken by the civilized among the Fourth Race Atlanteans, and it too slowly decayed and almost died out. More advanced among the Atlanteans left behind the inflectional, highly developed language for the Fifth-Race humanity.


• III. Inflectional: This speech of the early Fifth Race is now the "mystery tongue" of the Initiates of the Race. It was the root of Sanskrit, from which gradually sprang other languages.

It is believed that Jesus Christ was nailed to the Cross on a Friday, popularly known as Good Friday, and rose from the dead three day later, on Easter Sunday. Jesus is supposed to have made this sacrifice at the Cross for redeeming mankind. "The Crucifixion of Christ symbolizes the end of the dominion of self and exaltation of the spirit so that the person takes on the nature of Christ, putting to death his old sinful nature," writes M. P. K. Kutty (The Times of India, April 9). It is strange that the Cross, which is a symbol of suffering, should become the symbol of Christianity. "The symbolism of the Cross remains a mystery," writes Kutty. According to Evangelist Ravi Zachariah, "the Cross is foreign to everything we exalt—self over principle, power over meekness...comfort over sacrifice...the body over the spirit, anger over forgiveness, man over God."

Theosophy teaches that like Jesus, Krishna and Buddha too died on the "cross." The Cross represents the "Tree of life." "Tree" is a symbol of sacred and secret knowledge. "Tree" also stands for various Initiates. Realizing the unity of all, these Adepts and Initiates identify themselves with humanity and take upon themselves the Karma of suffering humanity. Taken literally, the whole of the life of Jesus up to crucifixion, shows this great sacrifice which spiritual beings undertake to help humanity.

H.P.B. explains the occult meaning of Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ thus:

Christ—the true esoteric Saviour—is no man, but the Divine Principle in every human being. He who strives to resurrect the Spirit crucified in him by his own terrestrial passions, and buried deep in the "sepulchre" of his sinful flesh; he who has the strength to roll back the stone of matter from the door of his own inner sanctuary, he has the risen Christ in him. The "Son of Man" is no child of the bond-woman—flesh, but verily of the free-woman—Spirit, the child of man's own deeds and the fruit of his own spiritual labour. (The Esoteric Character of the Gospels, p. 2)

In a way Crucifixion and Resurrection reflect the initiation ceremonies practised by the ancient Egyptians and other early civilizations. These initiations took place in crypts, caves, temples, pyramids and elsewhere, where the neophyte underwent a series of physical and psychological trials through which he proved his strength and readiness for spiritual rebirth. The Cross—a symbol with many meanings—was used during these ceremonies.

The Cross, say the Kabalists...is, perhaps, the most ancient of symbols. (S.D., II, 541).

The Cross and the Circle are a universal conception—as old as human mind itself. They stand foremost on the list of the long series of, so to say, international symbols, which expressed very often great scientific truths, besides their direct bearing upon psychological, and even physiological mysteries...(S.D., II, 555)

Now, the primordial system, the double glyph that underlies the idea of the Cross, is not "of human invention," for Cosmic ideation and the Spiritual representation of the divine Ego-man are at its basis. Later, it expanded in the beautiful ideal adopted by and represented in the Mysteries, that of regenerated man, the mortal, who, by crucifying the man of flesh and his passions on the Procrustean bed of torture, became reborn as an Immortal. Leaving the body, the animal-man, behind him, tied on the Cross of Initiation like an empty chrysalis, the Ego Soul became as free as a butterfly. (S.D., II, 561-62)

Homeopathy is one of the alternative medicines that have been gaining popularity these days. It was first tested and tried by the 18th-century German doctor, Samuel Hahnemann. However, its rationale still eludes scientists. Is it a miracle cure, placebo or nothing at all? "Homeopathy involves treating illnesses with such extreme dilutions of herbs, animal substances and chemical compounds that frequently not one molecule of the diluted substance is left in the solution. Homeopathy defies the known laws of science, not to mention common sense," writes Michael Castleman, author of several consumer health books. (Psychology Today, April 2004)

Homeopathy works on the Law of Similars, i.e., "illness can be cured by substances—plant, animal or mineral—that evoke the same symptoms in those who are well." Many critics have labelled homeopathy as "absurd," as they are unable to explain the "Law of Potentization," which holds that homeopathic medicines grow stronger as they become more dilute. Some seek to explain homeopathic cures as placebo effect.

H.P.B. writes in the article "The Bugbears of Science" (The Theosophist, February and April 1883) that homeopathy is not a new science. The law of similia similibus curantur (like cures like) was spoken of and used by Hippocrates, Paracelsus, Haller, Stahl and several other renowned chemists. Even in those days those who claimed that "with the decrease of the dose was obtained a proportionate increase of the effect," were regarded as charlatans, deluded fools and quacks. However, H.P.B. supports the efficacy of this claim based on analogy. She writes:

And the analogies we find around us tend all to confirm instead of contradicting the possibility of the great virtue claimed for the infinitesimals in medicinal doses. Indeed, observation shows in the great majority of cases that the more a substance is reduced to its simplest form, the less it is complicated, the more it is capable of storing energy, i.e., that it is precisely under such a condition that it becomes the most active. The formation of water from ice, steam out of water, is followed by absorption of heat; steam appears here, so to say, as the reservoir of energy; and the latter when spent during the conversion of steam back into water shows itself capable of performing mechanical work, such as moving of heavy masses, etc....When we turn to substances chemically homogeneous, or elementary substances so called, we find again that the greatest chemical activity belongs to those elements that are the lightest in weight in order to obtain some definite chemical action. Thus, if, in the majority of cases it is observed that the simpler and the more attenuated a substance has become, the more there is an increase of forces in it—then why, we ask, should we deny the same property or phenomenon there, where the masses of substances owing to their minuteness escape our direct observation and exact measurement? Shall we forget that the great and the little—are relative conceptions, and that infinitude is equally existent and equally unattainable by our senses whether it is on a large or on a small scale?

She then gives simpler evidence. A piece of musk would fill the air in a room with particles of that odoriferous substance without causing any appreciable change in the weight of the musk piece.

We also all know what strong effects may be produced upon certain sensitive organisms by certain smells, and that these may induce convulsions, swoons, and even a condition of dangerous coma. And if the possibility of the influence of infinitesimally small quantities of certain odoriferous substances upon the olfactory nerve need not be questioned at this stage of scientific enquiry, what ground have we in denying the possibility of like influence upon our nerves in general?...Thus, the influence of homeopathic doses becomes perfectly admissible and even probable; and the cure of diseases by occult agency...ought to be accepted as an ascertained and well verified fact for all but the conservative and incurable apostles of negation.

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